Assistant General Counsel
Required skills
- commercial counseling
- in-house tech company experience
- commercial counsel
- autodidactic
- GTM team
- account executives
- deal cycle
- deal structure
- contract templates
- negotiation playbooks
Nice to have
- top law firm
- state clerkships
- federal clerkships
- in-house legal teams
Role summary
Gridware, a San Francisco-based technology company specializing in active grid response (AGR) for electrical grids, seeks an Assistant General Counsel. This hybrid role offers a unique opportunity to lead the commercial counsel function, influencing legal, product, and business strategy. The attorney will be responsible for end-to-end negotiation of complex commercial agreements with utility customers, serving as the primary legal point of contact for the GTM team, and owning the broader commercial contracting function. Responsibilities include refining contract templates, advising on data privacy and security, providing product counseling, and managing international legal aspects. The ideal candidate has 7+ years of experience in complex commercial agreements and negotiation, with bonus experience in areas like enterprise SaaS, IoT, contract manufacturing, data licensing, or the energy/utility sector.
Role Description
Join Gridware’s small legal team and directly influence the company’s legal, product, and business strategy. We’re seeking an attorney with significant commercial counseling and/or in-house tech company experience that is eager to lead the commercial counsel function at Gridware, with flexibility to own additional areas. This cross-functional role requires an autodidactic mindset to tackle legal issues in collaboration with a range of internal teams. This position is hybrid and reports to the General Counsel.
Responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end negotiation of master agreements with utility customers, including large investor-owned utilities, public power, and international utilities.
- Serve as the primary legal point of contact for the GTM team, partnering directly with GTM leadership and account executives throughout the deal cycle to structure terms, manage risk, and close large, critical deals efficiently.
- Own and continuously refine contract templates, fallback positions, and negotiation playbooks to improve consistency, reduce turnaround time, and enable internal business teams to self-serve on standard terms.
- Advise on data ownership, privacy, and security issues that may arise in commercial agreements and in product development, in partnership with Engineering and InfoSec.
- Provide product counseling on new products in partnership with a range of internal teams, including Product, Engineering, GTM, Data Science, Customer Support, and Product Marketing.
- Advise on international deals and other legal aspects of international expansion, including selecting and managing local counsel.
- Own the broader commercial contracting function across the company, including vendor, partnership and other agreements, along with the accompanying legal ops processes.
Required Skills
- Member of a US State Bar
- JD from an ABA-accredited law school
- 7+ years of relevant experience, with a substantial portion spent as the lead attorney on complex, high-value commercial agreements.
- Demonstrated ability to run a large, multi-workstream negotiation against a sophisticated counterparty
- Experience working with outside counsel in international contexts
- Experience building or materially improving contract templates and playbooks
Bonus Skills
- Commercial contracts experience in one or more of: enterprise SaaS and platform agreements; IoT or connected hardware sold with a software subscription; contract manufacturing and supply chain agreements; data licensing and data rights; field services, installation, or construction-adjacent subcontracting.
- Experience with utilities or energy infrastructure, whether representing a vendor selling to utilities, working inside a utility or IPP, or working at a state or federal energy regulator, and familiarity with the regulatory and procurement environment utilities operate in.
- At least one of the following work experiences:
- Top law firm or state or federal clerkships
- In-house legal teams at technology companies
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