Data Protection and Management Engineer

Dentons•Chicago, WA

12h

About The Position

Dentons US LLP is recruiting a hands-on engineer to build and operate technical controls that keep the Firm’s client and matter data confidential, correctly classified, and retained only as long as required. The role owns day-to-day operation of data security posture management, data loss prevention, insider risk management, and sensitivity labeling, and supports Records and Information Governance with retention and disposition across the same data estate. The engineer works with document management system administrators on security policy management, ethical walls, and access controls. The role also partners with infrastructure, practice support, Risk, and the Office of General Counsel to protect confidential material while supporting the practice of law. Occasional off-hours work for maintenance windows, participation in an on-call rotation for data protection escalations, and limited travel to Firm offices may be required.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
At least 4 years of experience in data protection, information security, or a closely related infrastructure discipline, including at least 2 years of hands-on work with data loss prevention, data classification, or insider risk tooling.
Hands-on experience with Microsoft Purview, including Data Loss Prevention, Information Protection and sensitivity labels, Insider Risk Management, Audit, and Communication Compliance.
Working knowledge of at least one DSPM or data access governance platform, such as Microsoft, Varonis, Cyera, BigID, or Netwrix, and familiarity with third-party DLP and email security gateways.
Working familiarity with retention schedules, retention labeling, and defensible disposition, including how legal holds interact with retention.
Strong written communication skills and the ability to explain data protection risk to attorneys, business stakeholders, and Firm leadership.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a law firm, professional services, or another environment with strict client confidentiality obligations.
Familiarity with legal document management systems and their security models, such as iManage Work with Security Policy Manager and Threat Manager, or NetDocuments.
Hands-on experience with Purview Data Lifecycle Management, Records Management, or eDiscovery.
Certifications such as Microsoft SC-401 (Information Security Administrator, formerly SC-400), SC-200, CISSP, CIPT, IGP, or vendor-specific data protection certifications.

Responsibilities

Operate the Firm’s DSPM platform; onboard and maintain data sources across Microsoft 365, the document management system, file shares, and cloud infrastructure; tune discovery and classification accuracy; and report on sensitive-data location, exposure, and entitlement sprawl.
Partner with infrastructure, application, and practice support teams to remediate overshared repositories, excessive permissions, orphaned accounts, and unmanaged data stores identified through DSPM; track remediation to closure and measure reductions in data exposure.
Author, test, and tune data loss prevention policies across email, endpoints, cloud applications, browsers, and removable media; manage exceptions and business-justification workflows; triage and investigate alerts; and reduce false positives while maintaining coverage of egress channels.
Partner with Records and Information Governance to implement the Firm’s retention schedule; configure retention labels and policies; support disposition review and defensible destruction; and ensure legal holds suspend retention when required.
Identify aging and duplicate data, support decommissioning of legacy repositories, reduce redundant, obsolete, and trivial content, and report on volume under management and storage reclaimed.
Support document management system administrators with security policy management, ethical walls, and access management, including need-to-know security models, matter-level provisioning, access request workflows, periodic access reviews and recertification, and evidence for client audits and outside counsel guidelines.
Operate Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management, Information Protection, and Information Rights Management; build and tune policies for departing timekeepers, lateral hires, and data staging and exfiltration within agreed privacy, escalation, and legal review protocols.
Apply data protection controls to generative AI and collaboration tools; assess oversharing and content-hygiene risk before rollout, define guardrails for prompt and output handling, and evaluate emerging tooling.
Reduce manual effort through scripting and automation for policy deployment, label and retention operations, alert enrichment, evidence collection, and reporting.
Identify opportunities to apply AI to classification, investigation, and triage workflows.
Perform occasional off-hours work for maintenance windows, participate in an on-call rotation for data protection escalations, and undertake limited travel to Firm offices as required.