Program Overview

Program Overview

The Carnegie Mellon University Certificate Program in Privacy Engineering and AI Governance is a five-week program designed for working professionals. It offers a condensed training experience tailored to the needs of professionals, building directly on the content of the university's Master's Program.

Program Details

• Program Fee: $3,700
  • A 5% discount is available for companies that enroll three or more employees in a given cohort.
  • A 10% discount is available starting at five employees
• Program Schedule: Saturdays and Sundays, February 21 to March 21, 2026, 1-4 p.m. Eastern Time, live via Zoom
• Enrollment Deadline: February 4, 2026
• Certificate program participants are eligible to earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

Program Structure

The program revolves around a combination of mini-tutorials, class discussions, and hands-on exercises designed to ensure that students develop practical knowledge of all key privacy engineering areas. Students will learn about:

• Legal and public policy considerations
• Fundamentals of information security
• Privacy-by-design concepts
• Methodologies for engineering privacy in software
• Usable privacy and security
• Privacy enhancing technologies
• AI governance
• Mathematical and logical foundations of privacy

Career Opportunities

According to the International Association of Privacy Professionals, the average salary for a Privacy Engineer is $136,000, and those with a Privacy Technologist certification earn over $170,000 on average in the United States. Graduates from this program will be well-prepared to compete in this new and fast-growing job market.

Testimonials

• "I had high expectations entering this program and actually learned even more than I expected coming in. I loved how the program weaves together law, tech, and human behavior in the way it covers privacy engineering. I look forward to applying the concepts I learned in my work as a software engineer."
• "A fantastic program that builds up from notions of privacy, through current global regulations and up to advanced technology such as differential privacy and AI fairness."
• "This program gave me the tools to engineer privacy into our products and systems from the start. The program was engaging, accessible, and challenged me to expand my view and knowledge of how to build privacy into our company's initial offerings and beyond"

Part-Time Master's Program

Students interested in getting a master's degree should also check out the part-time master's program in privacy engineering, launched in fall 2021. This distance education version of the original master's program is designed to be completed in as little as two years.