After a rigorous law education, Motunrayo Adebayo worked for several years as a litigator, until she grew discontent with how boxed in she felt. The day she made the shift into tech, she said, was one of the happiest days of her life.
Adebayo works in tech and IT privacy. It’s a tech-adjacent role with increasing influence in global companies, particularly in the United States, where privacy concerns and regulations have made this one of the fastest-growing segments in the global tech industry. The path into that world was far from obvious to Adebayo back when she still wore wigs and jumped buses to courtrooms.
Let’s rewind.
Early years
In 2018, after earning her law degree in Nigeria and completing law school in Abuja, Adebayo did what many young lawyers do: put on a gown, walked into courtrooms, and tried to thrive there. She was a junior counsel at a Nigerian law firm, but the courtroom life did not feel natural to Adebayo. The robes were heavy. The performative weight of litigation, its language, its posture, and its theatre, pulled against the quiet, introverted way her mind worked.
“One aspect of law that challenged me was having to go to the courts,” Adebayo said. “I had to defend clients, but I was even struggling to express myself publicly at the time. But I saw my peers I graduated law school with; they were doing the same thing. So I kept at it for two years until I no longer enjoyed doing it.”
Adebayo had a certification in corporate secretaryship, which allowed her to work in compliance departments for several companies. It was in the course of this work and alongside some digging that she discovered privacy. Over the next few weeks, she immersed herself in privacy policies, IT and tech laws, and it opened up a more exciting career path.
In 2021, she got her first privacy-focused role, working full-time as an in-house lawyer at an IT consulting firm. There, she got into the trenches interpreting tech laws, reviewing privacy frameworks, and helping teams stay compliant. Adebayo described her role in IT privacy, which sits close to compliance, as looking for pins in a muddy haystack. Except this time, she said, you have to find the pins.
Tech privacy means different things to different companies. The bigger a firm gets, and the more it expands globally, the harder it is to avoid occasional regulatory fines. At that point, the goal, month on month, becomes how much smaller the budget for those fines can get.
She worked across two IT consulting firms in Nigeria as a privacy analyst and strategy operations lead before moving to the United States, where she went deeper into the technical side of privacy work.
Life as a privacy analyst
Adebayo wanted to go beyond legal interpretation. After years of drafting policies and reviewing compliance documents, she realised she needed to better understand the technology behind the rules.
She wanted to communicate effectively with engineers and tech teams. So she pursued a master’s degree in Information Technology in the US. She graduated in April. And after two months of seeking new opportunities in the US, she clinched a job as an analyst.
Today, her job is not vastly different from what she did back in Nigeria. But she admits that the terrain is different.
Her work now involves reviewing data processing agreements, auditing vendors, and helping teams follow privacy rules. She checks whether the company practices match what their policies claim they will do
Her daily tasks are often technical and detailed. Some days, it is about fixing policies. Other days, it is about updating contracts. The work suits her because it combines rules, structure, and problem-solving.
Tech and IT Privacy in the US
The demand for privacy professionals in the US has surged over the last decade. Legislation like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for global companies has made privacy not just a legal necessity but a strategic priority.
According to the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), privacy is one of the fastest-growing career areas in tech, with thousands of roles added annually across sectors like healthcare, fintech, SaaS, and retail.
Entry-level roles, such as privacy analysts and data protection specialists, are often stepping stones into more senior roles like Chief Privacy Officer or Data Governance Lead.
“You can start from an entry-level privacy analyst role and earn between $70,000 and $90,000 a year,” Adebayo said. “With experience, you could make up to $250,000 or more depending on certifications, years, and company size.” She has seen listings as high as $300,000 for seasoned experts with about seven years of experience.
| Role/level | Typical salary (US, remote/hybrid) |
| Entry/Privacy Analyst | $70,000–$90,000 |
| Mid/Privacy Consultant | $90,000–$150,000 |
| Senior/Privacy Officer/CPO | $150,000–$300,000+ |
Career advancement in the field is also strong. Many companies have moved privacy out of their legal departments and created separate teams to handle it, according to Adebayo. Privacy roles now sit alongside cybersecurity, engineering, and compliance at the executive table.
Privacy law meets remote work and job mobility
The nature of tech privacy work makes it one of the most viable fields for digital nomads. Privacy professionals work with documents, frameworks, legal analysis, and compliance audits—nearly all of which can be done from anywhere.
Companies are offering remote-first or hybrid roles in privacy, recognising that the work doesn’t require constant physical presence.
What also helps is the universal relevance of the skills. If you’re working on GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California, or newer laws like Brazil’s LGPD, the fundamentals are the same: understand regulations, apply them to business practices, and make sure systems respect data rights.
Adebayo’s current role is not remote, but she sees the potential for full remote work as she builds experience. She is already thinking about where her skills might take her—consulting for firms in Africa from the US, or working with global teams based out of anywhere.
But remote work is not just about location. For privacy professionals, it’s about flexibility in how you manage projects, coordinate across time zones, and maintain secure workflows.
The tools used—policy platforms, audit software, data visualisation dashboards—are cloud-based. That makes the job inherently location-flexible.
Yet, for those hoping to build a career abroad or live as IT privacy remote workers, Adebayo sounded that you need more than qualifications. You need to understand the environment you’re walking into.
“It’s not just about having skills,” she said. “You have to understand the rules and the laws of where you are, and what is expected of you. Know what [your company] is allowed to do and what it’s not.”
That awareness of local reality—legal requirements, hiring patterns, and workplace culture—is often where international professionals get stuck. It’s not that their experience isn’t valid. It’s that US employers often want to see how you’ve applied that experience within their systems.
Adebayo felt this early. Despite years of compliance work in Nigeria and a fresh master’s degree in IT, she couldn’t find a job for months after graduating.
Companies wanted local experience. So she changed her approach. She rewrote her résumé, added certifications, applied for internships, and kept learning until something stuck.
Once the initial hurdles are cleared, she said, the path gets more stable. Privacy work can offer not just income, but longevity. It gives professionals a chance to build a portable, well-paying career that holds up across borders and industries.
Fifty years ago, tech privacy didn’t exist, said Adebayo. The field has grown out of necessity, defined by the spread of digital systems that allow companies to “pseudo-expand” into new territories, without even knowing what rules they’re breaking.
Remote professionals who understand how data laws work are now key to how companies manage risk and build trust. It’s a path that combines legal thinking with technical awareness.
“Business is global, but privacy is local,” Adebayo said, as we wrapped up our call. “There is a demand for tech privacy workers.”
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