Research Engineer, Privacy and Anonymization

hud (YC W25)

. Build systems to detect PII, quasi-identifiers, credentials, and other sensitive information and design transformations based on data type and downstream use case .

Posted 9/23/2026full-timeRemote • California • United States, SingaporeMid-LevelSeniorWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in building systems for detecting and anonymizing sensitive information, with a strong focus on privacy-enhancing technologies and data processing pipelines. Proficient in Python and experienced in translating privacy requirements into effective technical solutions.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Python ProficiencyData Processing PipelinesPrivacy-Enhancing TechnologiesInformation ExtractionExperimental Analysis

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Information ExtractionNamed-Entity RecognitionClassificationRedactionMaskingPseudonymizationAnonymizationSynthetic DataMachine Learning SystemsData Utility Metrics

Soft Skills

Attention to DetailCollaborationCommunication

Tools & Technologies

Differential PrivacyK-AnonymitySecure AggregationFormat-Preserving Encryption

Industry Keywords

HealthcareFinanceSecurityAdversarial Re-IdentificationSchema Drift

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Python

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Build systems to detect PII, quasi-identifiers, credentials, and other sensitive information and design transformations based on data type and downstream use case
Develop and benchmark detection approaches combining rules, statistical models, classifiers, and LLM-based methods
Build production pipelines that anonymize raw data before downstream processing, training, evaluation, or synthetic data generation
Create evaluation frameworks measuring privacy risk and retained data utility, including recall-weighted metrics, leakage tests, and adversarial re-identification attempts
Design systems robust to new data sources, schema drift, unusual formats, and sensitive information embedded in unexpected fields
Work with engineering, research, operations, and customers to translate privacy requirements into practical technical policies and safeguards
Own the full pipeline for protecting privacy without destroying the structure and signal valuable for AI-agent training
Participate in a 2–3 day work trial during the application process

Requirements

What you’ll need

Strong proficiency in Python and experience building reliable production data or ML systems
Experience with information extraction, named-entity recognition, classification, or related methods for detecting rare or sensitive content
Strong experimental instincts and ability to compare approaches across recall, precision, latency, cost, and downstream data utility
Understanding of redaction, masking, pseudonymization, anonymization, and synthetic data, and when each is appropriate
High attention to detail and ability to reason about subtle leakage paths, edge cases, and adversarial failure modes
Experience building data processing pipelines end-to-end without a fully prescribed roadmap
Hands-on experience with privacy-enhancing technologies such as differential privacy, k-anonymity, secure aggregation, or format-preserving encryption (strong candidates may also have)
Experience with sensitive data in healthcare, finance, or security (strong candidates may also have)
Experience building low-latency or high-throughput ML inference and data-processing systems (strong candidates may also have)
Experience working in unstructured problem spaces and taking ownership from early research through production deployment (strong candidates may also have)
Early-stage startup experience and strong communication skills for collaboration across teams and time zones (strong candidates may also have)
Ability to work hours that 70–80% overlap with either San Francisco or Singapore time zones
Full-time availability

Benefits

Comp & perks

100% covered top-of-the-line medical, dental, and vision from Blue Shield of CA (US employees)
Lunch and dinner when you’re in the office (in-office employees)
Company-wide holiday break (Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day) on top of PTO and paid holidays
Unlimited access to tokens for ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, etc.
Equinox membership (US employees)
401k (US employees)
Commuter benefits (US employees)
Support for relocation and visas for strong full-time candidates to the US or Singapore