Director, Product and Privacy

At Podium, we bring AI Employees to local businesses that turn every conversation into revenue. Trusted by 60,000+ businesses across Auto, Home Services, and Aesthetics, Podium captures and converts leads 24/7, driving both new business and repeat customers.

In under 24 months, we crossed $100M in AI Agent ARR, scaling 300% year-over-year. During this time, we’ve deployed 10,000 AI employees to empower real business outcomes for our customers. Podium is building what we believe will be the most impactful AI employee ecosystem for local business.

Podium has been recognized as the Best AI Implementation by Inc. Magazine, highlighted by OpenAI for building revenue-driving AI Agents, and awarded the #1 AI Agent for Business Operations by G2.

Our growth is fueled by hiring exceptional people, holding them to high standards, and creating opportunities for them to grow and make an impact. Our operating principles guide daily behavior and ensure we hire people who will thrive at Podium. If you're hungry for growth, aligned to our operating principles, and ready to get to work, you won't find a better place to learn and accelerate your career.

Podium builds AI products that help local businesses engage customers, convert leads, book appointments, and manage customer relationships across Healthcare, Automotive, and Home Services. We are looking for an experienced product and privacy lawyer at the Director level to help shape how we build and deploy AI across our core verticals. Reporting to the General Counsel, you will work directly with the teams building our products, own practical privacy and AI governance programs, and be a critical member of a small legal team.

This is a senior individual contributor role with no direct reports, significant ownership, and direct influence on product decisions.

What you will be doing:

• Regularly meet with internal teams (e.g. Product, Engineering and AI teams) to understand strategies, roadmaps, and initiatives, and advise throughout the product lifecycle, from early design and development through launch, deployment, and ongoing monitoring.
• Provide legal advice and counsel on a variety of product compliance matters, including AI, privacy, data rights, intellectual property, and consumer protection, and structure, negotiate, and advise on transactions with AI providers, data partners, and integration partners, including product terms, data processing agreements, and business associate agreements.
• Partner closely with Product Management, Engineering, Partnerships, Marketing, Security, and the rest of the Legal team to ensure our products and services comply with applicable regulations in existing markets and industries and also help guide our expansion, with particular focus on AI products in Healthcare, Automotive, and Home Services.
• Provide legal and regulatory guidance on the design and modification of products, proactively identify associated risks and recommend mitigation strategies, review product user experiences to ensure legal compliance and proper disclosures, and help translate guidance into product requirements that the Product, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, and Legal teams can implement.
• Advise legal and business/product organizations on privacy issues and practical privacy considerations, and own the development and implementation of scalable product, privacy, and AI review process, including impact assessments, launch criteria, playbooks, and escalation paths.
• Identify applicable regulatory or legal privacy and AI risks associated with existing and new laws, conduct gap assessments, and advise on appropriate controls, risk mitigation options, and compliance strategies. Translate evolving requirements into prioritized product and operational changes.
• Manage cross-functional privacy-related projects, including but not limited to data mapping, permitted data uses, retention and deletion, and tracking technologies.
• Partner with Security on incident response and privacy aspects of compliance and diligence reviews.
• Build and operationalize AI governance for customer-facing agents and internal AI use. Advise on data sourcing and rights for model fine tuning, evaluation, and improvement; third-party model terms; output ownership; and safeguards against inaccurate outputs.
• Counsel on AI agents, including permissions, customer configurations, AI disclosures, human oversight and escalation, auditability, and the allocation of responsibility among Podium, model providers, integration partners, and customers.
• Guide healthcare product development, including HIPAA privacy and security, BAA obligations, sensitive health data, and EMR integrations. Advise on access controls, and patient communications.
• Advise on automotive and home services workflows, including, as applicable, Field Services Management or CRM and dealer management integrations, lead sourcing and re-engagement, appointment booking, service scheduling, and representations about pricing, financing, and services. Assess GLBA, FCRA, payments and other sector requirements where relevant to the feature and data involved.
• Advise on voice, messaging, and marketing compliance, including TCPA, telemarketing and do-not-call rules, consent and opt-out design, call recording and transcription, and AI-generated voice. Review product claims and customer guidance so they accurately describe capabilities, limitations, and customer responsibilities.
• Provide fintech and payments counseling on Podium Payments, including consumer disclosures, fraud and chargebacks, applicable financial services and payment network requirements. Partner with Product and Finance to allocate compliance responsibilities among Podium, customers, and financial partners.

What you should have:

J.D. with strong academic credentials and demonstrated record of success as a lawyer and member of local State Bar or eligible to register as Registered In-House Counsel.

8+ years of experience, including at least 5+ years of in-house experience, preferably at a high-growth technology company.

Experience counseling product teams on compliance with regulatory frameworks applicable to the U.S. and global telecommunications.

Experience counseling product teams on compliance with regulations in other industries and markets, such as Healthcare, Automotive, or Home Services, is also highly desirable.

Experience advising clients on risk mitigation across technology product platforms, particularly with respect to AI, payments and messaging/telecommunications technologies.

Required privacy certification, such as CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPM, or CIPT.

Specific experience working with, and knowledge of, privacy laws applicable to businesses, such as CCPA, CPRA, GDPR, TCPA, as well as other U.S. state and federal privacy and data security and global data protection laws.

Capacity to think strategically to identify issues and develop long-term solutions.

Ability to handle multiple assignments simultaneously and manage major projects to successful completion.

Excellent verbal and written communication skills and a strong customer-focused orientation.

Excellent interpersonal, presentation, and facilitation skills, as well as the ability to navigate within a corporate environment and work with a variety of stakeholders.

Demonstrated ability to use AI tools thoughtfully in legal work, verify their outputs, protect confidential information, and improve the speed and quality of legal counseling.