Solutus Legal Search
Associate General Counsel, Commercial (Hybrid) – San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley) (1004-SLS)
Our client, a fast-growing AI networking infrastructure company has exclusively retained Solutus Legal Search to assist the executives with their search for an Associate General Counsel (AGC) to lead its commercial legal function. This attorney will report directly to the SVP, General Counsel and is a hybrid role in the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.
This is a high-impact, high visibility role at the center of the business. The AGC will own the company’s most important commercial transactions, partner directly with senior leaders across the company, and help build the legal infrastructure that enables the organization to grow quickly and responsibly.
This attorney will be the go-to legal partner for complex customer, supplier, technology, licensing, manufacturing, and strategic partnership matters. They will work closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, and executive leadership to structure and close transactions, solve difficult problems, and provide practical advice on the legal and commercial issues that matter most.
The executives are seeking an attorney who combines excellent legal skills with strong business judgment and can distinguish meaningful legal risk from theoretical risk. They are comfortable making decisions in ambiguous situations, and approach negotiations with the goal of finding a path to “yes “while protecting the company's critical interests.
This is a hands-on role in a fast-moving environment. This attorney will negotiate agreements, advise senior leaders, build scalable processes, and help define what a best-in-class commercial legal function looks like as the company grows. There will be an opportunity to expand the commercial group and manage a team, starting with an additional hire within eight months of starting employment.
What You'll Do
- Lead the company’s commercial legal function. Serve as the primary legal partner for commercial matters and take ownership of transactions from initial structuring through negotiation, execution, and implementation.
- Own the most important deals. Structure, draft, and negotiate sophisticated agreements with customers, suppliers, technology partners, manufacturers, and other counterparties.
- Handle a broad range of technology transactions. Agreements may include customer sales and supply agreements, strategic partnerships, technology and IP licenses, development and collaboration agreements, manufacturing and supply agreements, distribution and channel arrangements, professional services agreements, procurement agreements, and other commercial contracts.
- Be a strategic partner to the business. Work closely with senior leadership and cross-functional teams to understand business objectives, evaluate risk, develop creative solutions, and help move important initiatives forward.
- Support our technology and product strategy. Partner with Product and Engineering on technology development, licensing, commercialization, strategic collaborations, and other issues at the intersection of law, technology, and business.
- Drive deals forward. Lead complex negotiations with sophisticated counterparties, identify the issues that matter, and develop pragmatic solutions that protect the company without creating unnecessary friction.
- Advise on critical commercial risks. Provide practical guidance on intellectual property ownership, confidentiality, indemnification, limitations of liability, warranties, privacy and security, exclusivity, supply commitments, regulatory considerations, and other issues arising in technology transactions.
- Build for scale. Develop and continuously improve our contract templates, negotiation playbooks, fallback positions, approval frameworks, clause libraries, and contracting processes.
- Make Legal easier to work with. Create processes and self-service tools that help business teams move quickly while maintaining appropriate risk controls.
- Use technology to improve how Legal operates. Help implement AI, contract lifecycle management, and other tools to improve speed, consistency, visibility, and efficiency across the contracting process.
- Create leverage across the organization. Train business teams on contracting practices, negotiation strategy, legal risk, and how to engage effectively with Legal.
- Pitch in wherever needed. We are a growing company with a lean legal team. You should be comfortable taking on important legal and business issues outside your core commercial responsibilities when the need arises.
The Ideal Profile
- J.D. from an accredited law school and active membership in good standing in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
- 8-10+ years of relevant legal experience, with substantial experience structuring and negotiating sophisticated commercial and technology transactions.
- In-house experience at a technology company; experience in a high-growth or rapidly scaling environment is strongly preferred.
- A track record of independently leading complex, high-value negotiations with sophisticated customers, suppliers, partners, and other counterparties.
- Deep experience with technology transactions and intellectual property licensing.
- Experience with both revenue-generating/customer transactions and supplier, procurement, or strategic sourcing transactions.
- Experience in AI infrastructure, semiconductor, hardware, advanced computing, networking, or another technically sophisticated industry is a strong plus.
- Excellent drafting, negotiation, analytical, and communication skills.
- Strong understanding of issues central to technology transactions.
- Exceptional business judgment and the ability to assess legal risk in the context of business objectives.
- Ability to translate complex legal issues into clear, actionable advice for executives and business teams.
- Experience building scalable contracting processes, templates, playbooks, and legal operations infrastructure.
- Ability to independently manage multiple complex and business-critical matters in a fast-paced environment.
This is an opportunity to build, not simply inherit.
You will have significant ownership over how the company approaches commercial transactions and how the legal function supports the business. You will work directly with senior leaders on some of the company's most important relationships and strategic initiatives, while helping create the contracting infrastructure and legal processes that will support our next stage of growth.
Base compensation is in the $300k range + a target bonus and a very competitive stock grant.
Solutus Legal Search has been retained as the exclusive representative for this desirable search. Resumes submitted directly to our client will be forwarded to Solutus for review and evaluation.
Given the heavy volume of applicants, we will only respond directly to applicants if their background is aligned with our client’s hiring criteria. We appreciate your understanding.
Ref. #1004-SLS
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