Careers at DuckDuckGo

Join our fully distributed team and help raise the standard of trust online!

Join Our Team

We host yearly meetups around the world so our global team can strengthen connections and work together face-to-face.

Join Our Global Team

DuckDuckGo is a remote company of 335+ passionate people from over 15 countries. Together, we're on a mission to show the world that protecting privacy can be simple.

We embrace diverse perspectives and seek hardworking, self-motivated individuals. Interested in joining our team? Learn about our unique culture and support resources we offer team members.

Take Back Your Schedule

No core hours means working when you're most productive, and taking time off when you need it.

Love Where You Work

Since 2012, we've maintained an average team retention of over 95%, even as we've tripled in size over the past few years.

Fair Pay For Everyone

Everyone within the same professional level and global region earns the same pay, regardless of factors like race, gender, and age.

The DuckDuckGo Hiring Process

Hiring works best when it's a two-way street. That's why we help you get to know us and envision what your future role at DuckDuckGo might look like. Learn more about how we hire.

We follow a flexible timeline based on your schedule and current employment status. For details on how we treat your personal data during this process, see our Recruiting Information Policy.

1

Chat With Us

If your application is a good match, our talent manager will invite you to a brief call.

2

Complete Projects

Next, we'll send you a paid test project. Expect a second if all goes well.

3

Meet Our Team

We'll talk between projects so we can learn more about each other.

4

Hop Onboard!

If everyone thinks it's a good fit, we'll make you an offer to join.

Open Positions

Data Science

Who We Are

Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue now exceeds $100m USD and millions use our browser on on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck.ai, which lets you chat privately with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AIs, all in one place. Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work, you've come to the right place!

Your Team and Role

Working on the Data Science Functional Team, you'll drive product and business impact through statistical modeling, experiment design, Bayesian marketing analysis, and classifier implementation across our search engine, instant answers, AI, and revenue optimization, and work on related projects. Recent projects include:

• Defining core growth metrics for our products and building the infrastructure to monitor trends and anomalies

• Measuring the impact of major marketing campaigns for Duck.ai, translating full-funnel data into actionable decisions

• Building monitoring pipelines to detect unexpected shifts in search traffic patterns faster and more reliably

• Expanding evaluation datasets for page context understanding across complex scenarios like multi-tab browsing and content reattachment

• Improving the trigger systems that determine when AI-assisted answers surface in DuckDuckGo Search, balancing quality and our privacy-first approach

Our data meets rigorous privacy standards and is necessarily sparse, so you'll need to think creatively to surface actionable insights in an evidence-first culture where quantitative rigor is the baseline, not the exception.

About You

• You have 7+ years of experience in Data Science and a track record of leading high-complexity projects from scoping to production with minimal direction.

• You can do 2 or more of the following:

• Deploy and iterate on ML in production environments

• Develop and deploy NLP solutions

• Apply knowledge of LLMs including fine-tuning, LLM-as-judge, and AI-assisted development

• Conduct marketing campaign analysis using Bayesian methods

• You write production-grade code in Python or a comparable high-level language.

• You have advanced SQL and query optimization skills, familiarity with columnar databases like BigQuery, Clickhouse, Redshift, or Druid; experience with a BI tool like Tableau or PowerBI is a plus.

• You can design, implement, and analyze experiments across product surfaces, and are comfortable deriving insights from sparse or privacy-constrained data.

• You collaborate effectively with product teams and contribute to overall team throughput.

Compensation

$178,500 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.

Eligibility for company-sponsored health benefits is limited to team members based in the United States. This program does not extend to team members located in other countries, such as Canada or the UK.

Our Team Member Support Guide explains how we prioritize your wellbeing including paid parental leave, office setup, and co-working allowances.

Hiring Process

Hiring works best when it's a two-way street. Learn how we help you get to know DuckDuckGo, envision your future role here, and find out more about how we hire.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.

We want to ensure that our hiring process is accessible. If you need reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process because of a medical condition or disability, please send an email to careers@duckduckgo.com to let us know the nature of your request.

Please note that:

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

• By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

As part of our commitment to enhancing our recruitment process, we utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technology to assist in reviewing and summarizing job applications and test projects, including those tools integrated into our recruitment vendor platforms. We use AI to flag potentially fraudulent applications, analyze and summarize applicants’ experience, interviews, and project performance, and help streamline our selection process.

Key Principles:

• Data Privacy: All information provided in your application will be handled in accordance with our Recruiting Privacy Policy. We ensure that your personal information is protected and used solely for recruitment purposes.

• Human Oversight and Accountability: The AI technology is designed to support our hiring team by providing insights and summaries of applications and evaluations of test projects against scoring rubrics. All final evaluations and hiring decisions, however, will be made by our hiring team, who will consider the AI's input alongside other factors.

• Transparency: We believe in transparency regarding our hiring practices. If you have any questions about how AI is used in our recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to us.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge and consent to the use of AI technology in our review process. If you would like to request an alternative selection process, please contact us as at careers@duckduckgo.com. Thank you for your interest in joining DuckDuckGo!

#LI-DNI

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

Working on the Data Science Functional Team, you'll drive product and business impact by developing data scientists, setting clear expectations for them, providing hands-on mentorship, and removing blockers.

You will guide and advise multiple data science projects so that they stay on track and have timely delivery with maximum impact. These projects will involve statistical modeling, experiment design, and classifier implementation across our search engine, instant answers, AI, and revenue optimization. You'll collaborate cross-functionally to validate direction through data, build trust in organizational tactics and strategy by consulting on experiments, and become an expert in our core metrics like searches, installs, and revenue. You'll also drive improvement of the data pipeline. Because of our strong privacy policies, you'll need to think creatively and develop strategies for how we can surface more actionable insights in an evidence-first culture where quantitative rigor is the baseline, not the exception.

As a Director, Data Science, you'll help shape our all-in-one privacy solution and join our mission to show the world that protecting your privacy online can be simple.

About You

• You have 10+ years of experience in data science or ML engineering, with 4+ years leading teams, and a track record of setting multi-team roadmaps and adapting swiftly as priorities shift.

• You've driven organizational culture toward data-driven decision-making and can translate technical tradeoffs and risks clearly for executives and cross-functional stakeholders.

• You enjoy coaching experienced data scientists who are already highly skilled. You give direct, actionable feedback and you've built teams where people do the best work of their careers.

• You can deploy and iterate ML and NLP solutions in production at expert level, with deep knowledge of when to reach for which tools - especially in constrained environments requiring fast responses and strict privacy standards.

• You write production-grade code in Python or a comparable high-level language and stay close to the technical work when it matters most.

• You have advanced SQL and query optimization skills, familiarity with columnar databases like BigQuery, Clickhouse, Redshift, or Druid.

• You have strong LLM/AI experience including fine-tuning, LLM-as-judge evaluation, and AI-assisted development, and can design, implement, and analyze experiments across product surfaces using sparse or privacy-constrained data.

• Preferred: experience at a consumer-facing tech company where data or analytics is core to the product strategy.

Compensation

$ 243,800 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Please note that:

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

#LI-DNI

Engineering - Backend Engineering

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

Working on the Backend Functional Team, you'll lead complex projects across key company-wide objectives. Using Perl (Version 5), Go, and Node.js, you’ll write pragmatic, performant, testable code that works consistently, and work on related projects. Recent projects include:

• Implementing AI-assisted answers and integrating them into our Search product while maintaining our privacy-first approach

• Delivering improvements to Duck.ai to help us make it a competitive AI chat alternative for both free and paying users

• Implementing sophisticated data processing pipelines that maintain search relevancy

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you'll collaborate remotely with your peers and take responsibility for solving product issues impacting our all-in-one privacy solution, whether large or small. In time, you'll formally mentor other engineers, supporting their career growth and the growth of the Backend Team at DuckDuckGo.

About You

• 7+ years of professional experience, primarily focused on backend systems that power consumer-facing products

• Product acumen to reason about technical tradeoffs in terms of user impact

• Familiarity with AI agent tooling: evaluation frameworks, RAG pipelines and prompt engineering

• A fundamental understanding of complex data structures and algorithms — you can develop and apply new solutions and confidently navigate and improve existing code.

• Data-driven analytical skills for decision-making, stakeholder alignment, and experiment-oriented delivery

• Solid project management abilities

• Excellent written and verbal communication to validate and articulate decisions

• Previous experience leading and mentoring experienced engineers, supporting their career goals, and unlocking their potential.

Compensation

$ 178,500 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that:

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

• Data Privacy: All information provided in your application will be handled in accordance with our Recruiting Privacy Policy. We ensure that your personal information is protected and used solely for recruitment purposes.

#LI-DNI

Engineering - Privacy Engineering

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

Working on the Privacy Functional Team, you'll lead complex projects across key company-wide objectives. You'll protect the privacy of our users using Go, Node.js, Python, and (sometimes) Perl to write pragmatic, performant, testable code, and work on related projects. Potential projects include:

• Designing systems for improving our search indexes and AI features without compromising user privacy

• Building new features on top of our Tracker Radar crawler to detect emerging privacy threats

• Implementing new privacy features and maintaining existing ones, such as our Web Tracking and Email Protections

As a Senior Privacy Engineer, you'll own major components of our privacy technology, taking responsibility for their maintenance and improvement over time. A key part of the role will also be participation in our privacy review and audit processes, ensuring that all product developments align with our privacy principles. In time, you'll formally mentor other engineers, supporting their career growth and the growth of the Privacy Team at DuckDuckGo.

About You

• Ability to lead and collaborate on high-impact and complex projects from proposal through post-mortem.

• Skills to wrangle vague problems, propose innovative solutions, and execute them effectively, involving others when necessary.

• Experience working on privacy solutions in an engineering capacity (e.g. tracker blocker, differential privacy, or similar technology).

• Deep technical understanding of online privacy threats and the existing solution space to protect against them.

• Proficiency in any of the following: Go, Node.js, Python, Perl.

• Excellent communication skills. You can validate your decisions and communicate them clearly to a variety of audiences, including non-technical stakeholders.

Compensation

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that:

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

#LI-DNI

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

Working on the Privacy Functional Team, you'll be a privacy engineering leader at DuckDuckGo, the person who steps in on the most complex, ambiguous, and high-stakes privacy challenges that arise across our products. Using deep expertise in privacy engineering, audit frameworks, and cross-functional collaboration, you'll lead critical privacy initiatives that shape the future of private browsing, private search, agentic computing ,and work on related projects. Recent projects include:

1. Building a privacy engineering framework for DuckDuckGo's agentic browsing products, solving novel challenges around user data in AI-assisted workflows.

2. Designing technical solutions to enable private search index capabilities while preserving strict privacy guarantees at scale.

As Engineering Director, Privacy, you'll own high-complexity privacy projects from definition to delivery, evolve our privacy triage and review processes, build automation that reduces engineering toil, and grow the next generation of privacy engineers, all while contributing significantly to privacy strategy across the company.

About You

• 10+ years experience leading privacy reviews, audits, or technical privacy programs at a consumer-facing product company with a large (1M+) user base.

• 4+ years privacy engineering leadership experience - building infrastructure tools, data minimization systems, or equivalent privacy-preserving technical solutions.

• Director, Head of, or VP-level experience with direct management and hiring responsibilities and meaningful technical scope.

• Proven ability to DRI high-complexity, cross-functional projects with minimal direction.

• Strong communication skills, with a track record of translating privacy principles into practical engineering decisions across competing stakeholder needs.

• Experience improving organizational processes — identifying bottlenecks, implementing automation, and building scalable review systems.

• Passion for privacy and raising the standard of trust online.

Compensation

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that:

1. You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

2. Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.

3. While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

4. A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

5. By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

1. Data Privacy: All information provided in your application will be handled in accordance with our Recruiting Privacy Policy. We ensure that your personal information is protected and used solely for recruitment purposes.

2. Human Oversight and Accountability: The AI technology is designed to support our hiring team by providing insights and summaries of applications and evaluations of test projects against scoring rubrics. All final evaluations and hiring decisions, however, will be made by our hiring team, who will consider the AI's input alongside other factors.

3. Transparency: We believe in transparency regarding our hiring practices. If you have any questions about how AI is used in our recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to us.

Engineering - Security Engineering

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

Working on the Security Functional Team, you'll play a pivotal role in ensuring our security capabilities keep pace with our rapid product development, including our expanding AI offerings like Duck.ai and agentic browsing, directly protecting our users across all our products. You'll also maintain incident detection and response capabilities for the company, and work on related projects. Recent projects include:

• Browser and sync security audits

• SERP security mitigations

• Agentic browser hardening

As a Senior Web Security Engineer, Browser Platform, you'll harden our agentic browsing and DuckAI experiences against emerging threats (like prompt injection), conduct browser and sync security audits (special pages, DuckAI integrations, password manager, etc.), execute on SERP security mitigations (XSS prevention, tooling development to help engineers write safer code), build and maintain harnesses that get security fixes out automatically, manage application security scanning infrastructure setup, deliver on internal red-team operations (simulated attack scenarios), support security triage, and more!

About You

• 7+ years of experience in web or application security (performing security assessments, vulnerability research, penetration testing, or secure code review)

• Recent experience creating security focused agentic harnesses

• Experience influencing large feature designs to have security baked in from the start

• Advanced programming or scripting experience with JavaScript. Any additional experience with our stack is a bonus: Swift/Kotlin/C#/JavaScript (native apps) or JavaScript/Perl/Go (search).

• Experience with at least one WebView technology (WebKit, WebView2, Chromium WebView, etc.) and understanding of browser security models (SOP, CSP, CORS, SameSite cookies)

• Hands-on experience identifying and exploiting web vulnerabilities (XSS, CSRF, injection attacks, authorization flaws, etc.)

• Familiarity with security testing tools and frameworks

• Experience partnering and collaborating with Product Engineers, advising on security matters and helping teams ship secure code faster

• Experience shaping how an organisation thinks about security - driving best practices, improving processes, and raising the bar across teams

Compensation

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that:

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

#LI-DNI

Law & Policy

Who We Are

Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue now exceeds $100m USD and millions use our browser on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work — you've come to the right place!

Your Team and Role

As VP, Legal, you'll serve as DuckDuckGo's senior legal leader and strategic advisor to the executive team, overseeing all legal matters across our growing product portfolio, complex regulatory environment, and key commercial relationships.

This role combines executive legal leadership with hands-on individual contribution. You'll manage and develop our legal team while personally owning DuckDuckGo's most significant legal matters including high-stakes regulatory and competition proceedings and complex commercial agreements. You'll also work closely with our policy team, providing legal counsel on regulatory and legislative strategy.

You're an attorney who thinks like a business partner: someone who translates legal complexity into clear strategic guidance, enables fast product development without compromising trust, and builds a legal function that scales. This role is designed to grow as the company scales.

What You'll Do

• Serve as the primary legal advisor to the CEO, executive team, and board on strategy, risk, regulatory developments, and sensitive legal matters.

• Direct global privacy compliance, ensuring DuckDuckGo products and practices stay ahead of GDPR, US state privacy laws, and emerging data protection requirements.

• Direct company legal strategy and outside counsel in complex regulatory and competition proceedings that directly shape DuckDuckGo's business.

• Manage and develop the legal team, set priorities, build the legal operating model, and develop team members.

• Work closely with the policy team, acting as a key stakeholder and providing legal counsel as necessary on highest priority US and EU policy matters.

• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Security on legal implications of AI features, new product launches, advertising formats, and data practices.

• Evolve legal operations infrastructure: intake workflows, outside counsel management, budget ownership, and playbooks across key practice areas.

• Advise on employment matters, IP strategy, and corporate transactions as DuckDuckGo grows.

• Own corporate governance and support strategic transactions, including M&A and financing rounds.

• And work on related projects.

About You

• 15+ years of legal experience, including 10+ years in-house at a consumer-facing technology company.

• 7+ years of progressive experience in legal leadership roles, including 2+ years in positions of comparable seniority (VP, Deputy General Counsel, etc.).

• JD and active bar membership in at least one US jurisdiction.

• Familiarity with corporate governance and strategic transactions, including M&A, financing rounds, or board advisory work, sufficient to own these matters as the company grows.

• Deep expertise in at least two of DuckDuckGo's highest-stakes legal domains: privacy/data protection, technology platform regulation, or antitrust/competition law.

• Demonstrated ability to advise executives on complex legal risk and manage significant litigation and regulatory proceedings.

• Track record managing legal teams and outside counsel across multiple jurisdictions.

• Strong commercial instincts and a business enabler known for sound judgment, not reflexive caution.

• Located in the US.

Compensation

$320,000 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that:

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

Marketing - User Acquisition

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

Working on the Marketing & Communications Functional Team, you'll manage paid media channels to drive profitable acquisition of new app users, aim to help millions of people take back control of their personal information, and work on related projects. Recent projects include:

• Scaling and optimizing app acquisition campaigns in Google, Microsoft and Apple ad platforms

• Launching new ad channel tests and measuring incremental lift

• Executing in-market tests for new creative and messaging to improve app install conversion

As a Senior Growth Marketing Manager, you'll manage high priority marketing campaigns, including planning, hands-on execution, testing, optimization, and analysis to optimize spend and drive profitable user growth. You'll deliver results from new channel testing, app acquisition, subscriber growth, paid advertising, and creative testing. Responsibilities may also include owning a portfolio of existing channels (Google ads, paid social, app install campaigns) with the goal of efficiently scaling profitable advertising. The right person is excited to prove that paid marketing growth and privacy-respecting advertising practices aren’t at odds — they’re our edge. You know how to use aggregate measurement, experimentation, and strong judgment rather than user-level targeting and tracking.

About You

• 7+ years of experience in digital advertising roles with 2+ years of experience in marketing consumer apps preferred.

• Hands-on expertise standing up and managing paid digital advertising programs (Google Ads, Apple Ads, etc.) as well as familiarity with non-digital paid media management (CTV, TV, etc.).

• Demonstrated track record of profitably scaling app install growth programs while improving efficiency and unit economics as volume materially scales.

• Ability to execute highly complex and ambiguous projects, working across business strategy and marketing tactics.

• Experience designing and running incrementality tests (geo holdouts, lift studies, PSA/ghost ads) to validate true channel impact and guide investment decisions.

• Advanced analytical abilities, including modeling app economics (payback, LTV), data analysis, scenario planning, and projecting campaign outcomes across spend and volume curves.

• Track record of running creative testing as an always on pipeline, consistently shipping new concepts to prevent performance decay and unlock incremental scale.

• Passion for ideating and problem solving to deliver creative solutions for profitable user growth.

• Excellent communication skills — you can clearly articulate recommendations and rationale, whether verbal or written.

Compensation

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

As a Director, Paid Marketing, working on the Marketing & Communications team, you’ll be a strategic leader responsible for building and scaling a profitable paid subscriber acquisition program and related projects. Partnering closely with marketing, product, design, user insights, data science and finance teams, you will own KPI development, campaign strategy, budget and resource allocation, and performance measurement.

You'll lead strategic roadmapping, prioritize high-impact projects, resource cross-functional teams, and ensure marketing performance is measured with a high degree of confidence. The right person is excited to prove that paid marketing growth and privacy-respecting advertising practices aren’t at odds — they’re our edge. You know how to use aggregate measurement, experimentation, and strong judgment rather than user-level targeting and tracking.

Example projects include:

1. Leading the development of and alignment around a break-even model that defines a profitable CPA

2. Planning integrated campaigns and securing buy-in to drive profitable paid subscriber growth

3. Designing and executing rapid testing cycles to identify and scale successful tactics

About You

1. 10+ years of professional experience, including 4+ years in a senior leadership role driving profitable app subscription growth (ideally 1M+ subscribers).

2. Deep strategic expertise with a strong hands-on understanding of marketing channels (e.g., app store ads, paid social, mobile app networks), integrated campaign planning and execution, performance measurement, audience alignment, and creative best practices.

3. Proven track record of launching paid app subscription acquisition programs from the ground up, including setting cost-per-subscription targets, developing media plans, establishing measurement frameworks, and shaping creative and messaging.

4. Experience working at a consumer-facing tech company with a meaningful US user base (ideally 10M+ MAUs) and multiple products.

5. Skill in developing others, not just directing them, with demonstrated improvements in collaboration, expertise, productivity, and business impact.

6. Ability to apply first-principles thinking to break down ambiguous growth opportunities, challenge assumptions, identify the key drivers, and turn them into focused, achievable initiatives.

7. Comfort working in resource-constrained orgs where opportunity cost and impact are key drivers for prioritization and resource allocation.

8. High capability in analytics and measurement, including app economics (payback, LTV), incrementality/lift testing, modeling, and data analysis.

9. Excellent communication skills — you can clearly articulate recommendations and rationale, verbally and in writing, at all organizational levels.

10. Willingness to use AI and build effective workflows, accelerating work through AI agents.

Compensation

$243,800 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is identical within professional levels, regardless of geographic location or team. Compensation for each professional level is transparent across the organization.

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that:

1. You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

2. While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

3. A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles:

Partnerships

Who We Are

Your Team and Role

As a Director, Business Development on the Partnerships team, you’ll lead DuckDuckGo’s most complex AI partnerships and drive strategy — sourcing, negotiating and scaling high-impact deals with model providers, AI infrastructure partners, emerging players in the agentic ecosystem, and work on related projects. These partnerships don't have a playbook yet — you'll be structuring deals where the product, the economics, and the strategic value need to be figured out together, working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Finance to make them real.

You'll manage a portfolio of competing and complementary AI provider relationships, forging partnerships with leading organizations while navigating the strategic tradeoffs of a market where pricing, capabilities, and competitive dynamics shift quarterly. Your work will directly shape how Duck.ai and our AI-powered products evolve and reach millions of users — and how a privacy-first search company competes in the AI landscape.

What Projects Might Look Like

• Figuring out further partnerships that could enhance our Duck.ai and Search Assist offerings

• Creating new distribution channels to help grow our AI related services

About You

• 10+ years of Business Development, Partnerships, or Strategic Partnerships experience.

• 5+ years of cross-functional leadership on partnership projects and teams, including legal and engineering.

• Experience with consumer internet or user-facing software business with an understanding of the AI/LLM ecosystem and how AI capabilities are being integrated into consumer products.

• Significant experience leading complex product partnerships end-to-end — from identifying the opportunity through deal close and beyond. These should be partnerships where you've created something new together and navigated real product and technical complexity, not sales deals or API licensing.

• Self-sufficiency on the commercial details — you don’t wait for someone else to draft terms, build financial models, or pressure-test deal structures — you can handle these details on your own while partnering with Legal and Finance.

• Experience managing a portfolio of complex strategic partner relationships and an understanding of the tradeoffs that come with balancing competing and complementary providers.

• You build trust quickly with internal teams, partners, and stakeholders you've never worked with before. You're collaborative by default and decisive when it counts.

• Located in the US or Canada.

Compensation

$243,800 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.

Hiring Process

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Please note that:

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

Key Principles: