Senior Counsel, Commercial

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. 

Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.

Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

The role in a nutshell:

We are seeking a Senior Counsel to serve as a key legal partner to our Go-To-Market organization. This is a highly visible, customer-facing role at the center of the business, enabling revenue growth while protecting the company.

The ideal candidate is a strong commercial attorney with significant drafting experience who thrives in the energy and intensity of a high-growth company. You are proactive, business-minded, and comfortable operating in fast-moving environments. You enjoy partnering closely with Sales and cross-functional teams, negotiating directly with sophisticated customer counsel, and taking full ownership of transactions from start to finish.

In addition to deep commercial expertise, this role requires experience navigating open source licensing considerations and negotiating with highly regulated customers.

What you’ll do:

• Serve as a primary legal partner to the Go-To-Market team, supporting customer transactions from initial structuring through execution

• Draft, review, and negotiate SaaS agreements, enterprise customer agreements, professional services agreements, NDAs, and partner/channel agreements

• Draft and maintain standard form agreements and online terms (e.g., platform terms, universal license agreements, order forms)

• Negotiate directly with sophisticated customer counsel, including those at financial services, insurance, healthcare, and pharmaceutical organizations

• Ensure commercial agreements align with open source licensing requirements and industry best practices

• Partner closely with Product, Product Legal, Security, and other cross-functional teams to align legal guidance with business and technical objectives

• Provide practical, risk-calibrated advice consistent with company policies and risk tolerance

• Support partnership initiatives as needed and contribute to scalable contracting processes as the company grows

What we're looking for:

• Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school and active bar membership in good standing

• 5+ years of commercial legal experience, ideally combining law firm and in-house technology company experience

• Strong experience drafting and negotiating SaaS, subscription, and professional services agreements

• Demonstrated ability to draft standard form agreements and online terms from the ground up — not solely negotiating third-party paper

• Experience negotiating with highly regulated customers and familiarity with the regulatory considerations impacting those industries

• Working knowledge of open source licensing and compliance considerations

• Experience in cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, or related technology sectors strongly preferred

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to build strong working relationships across Sales, Product, Security, and executive stakeholders

• Sound business judgment and the ability to balance legal risk with commercial objectives

• Comfort managing multiple complex matters in a fast-paced, high-growth environment

About Us

We live and breathe our company values:

• We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
• We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
• We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
• We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.

A few of the benefits we offer:

• Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
• Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
• 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
• ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
• 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.

If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice.

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