Counsel – Privacy, Security & AI Office in London

Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform company, led by technologist and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal (founder of AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco for $3.7B). Harness has raised approximately $570M in funding and is valued at $5.5B, backed by leading investors including Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, Citi Ventures, and more. As AI accelerates code creation, the real bottleneck has shifted to everything after the code – testing, deployments, application security, reliability, compliance, and cost optimization. Harness brings AI and automation to this “outer loop,” helping teams ship software faster while maintaining security and governance throughout the entire software delivery lifecycle.

Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the Harness Platform applies deep context and intelligent automation across the software delivery lifecycle with governance and policy-driven controls embedded throughout the platform. Over the past year, Harness powered over 185M deployments, 82M builds, 18T flag evaluations, 8M security scans, 9.1B optimized tests, 3T protected API calls, and helped manage $2.8B in cloud spend — enabling customers like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels to accelerate releases by up to 75%, reduce cloud costs by up to 60%, and achieve 10x DevOps efficiency. With a global team across 26 offices and 25 countries, Harness is shaping the future of AI software delivery — and we’re looking for exceptional talent to help us move even faster.

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced and strategic Counsel to join our Privacy, Security & AI (“PSAI”) Office. In this role, you will play a critical part in guiding our product and AI compliance, supporting global privacy and data protection strategy, and helping shape the company’s approach to responsible and ethical data use. You’ll advise senior leadership, collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, and help ensure that our data practices are aligned with global legal and regulatory obligations, including those emerging around AI governance and advanced technologies.

About the role

• AI
  • Support the development and implementation of the AI Governance Program
  • Draft and implement AI policies, procedures, and best practices for both internal use of AI and product development
  • Lead internal awareness campaigns to foster a culture of responsible AI across the organization.
  • Support AI Use Case Intake Assessments
  • Provide AI advice to key stakeholders (product, procurement)
  • Support customers queries and questionnaires
• Product Compliance
  • Collaborate closely with product and engineering teams to evaluate and mitigate privacy and AI compliance risks during development and deployment.
  • Review and assess AI/ML use cases for compliance with legal and ethical standards, including EU AI Act, OECD AI Principles, and NIST AI RMF.
  • Contribute to development of governance frameworks for responsible AI, including fairness, explainability, and accountability controls.
• Privacy & Data Protection Legal Strategy
  • Lead complex legal analysis and provide strategic privacy advice on global data protection laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, LGPD, PIPEDA, APPI), with a main focus on US federal and state privacy and EU GDPR.
  • Guide business and technical teams on lawful bases for processing, purpose limitation, transparency, and data minimization.
  • Evaluate and advise on complex personal data use cases, including sensitive data, automated decision-making, and biometric processing.
  • Implement best practices around privacy to ensure the competitive edge of the company.
  • Draft and review breach-related communications, including regulator and data subject notices.
  • Conduct privacy reviews for third-party vendors and tools to ensure alignment with internal standards and legal requirements.
  • Drive the development, maintenance, and enhancement of the company’s privacy compliance program.
  • Maintain and oversee updates to the Records of Processing Activities (ROPA), and ensure accountability documentation is current and complete.
  • Partner with security, compliance, and product teams to integrate privacy by design into internal processes and external-facing technologies.
  • Lead and advise on complex Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs).
  • Oversee and conduct Transfer Impact Assessments (TIAs) to assess and document data transfer risks.
  • Manage Legitimate Interests Assessments (LIAs) and ensure robust justification and safeguards are in place.
  • Identify privacy and AI-related risks and recommend scalable mitigation strategies across the organization.
• Audits, Monitoring & Regulatory Readiness
  • Support or lead the legal function in responding to privacy audits, regulator inquiries, and due diligence requests.
  • Prepare documentation, gap analyses, and remediation plans to ensure audit readiness.
  • Track and interpret global privacy and AI regulatory developments, and support internal implementation efforts.

About you

• Qualified lawyer (active bar membership in at least one jurisdiction).
• 1-3+ years of legal experience, with a focus on privacy, data protection, and technology law.
• Deep understanding of GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and global privacy frameworks.
• Preferred experience with FedRamp, PCI DSS and ISO frameworks.
• Extensive experience with PIAs/DPIAs, TIAs, LIAs, and cross-border data transfer mechanisms.
• Strong understanding of privacy issues in product development, data science, and AI applications.

Preferred:

• CIPP/E, CIPP/US and AIGP.
• Direct experience working with or interpreting AI legal and regulatory frameworks (e.g., EU AI Act).
• Strong negotiation skills, particularly in data protection clauses and international data transfer agreements.

Work Location

Remote within France, Spain, Germany, or the UK.