Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats. Founded in 2022, CHAOS Industries has raised $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners, and is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London.

About the role

We're looking for a Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist to join our Legal team as we build out the function from the ground up. Reporting to the Head of Legal Operations, you'll be a hybrid player—hands-on with contract review, negotiation, and drafting support, while also helping design and run the systems and processes that let Legal scale as CHAOS grows across its business units. This is a foundational hire where you'll shape how contracts move through our organization, from intake through execution, at a company actively building its legal infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Review vendor/commercial contracts and NDAs, drafting and negotiating directly with counterparties and escalating novel or high-risk issues to counsel
• Draft and negotiate commercial agreements, applying standard playbook positions and knowing when a deviation needs legal sign-off
• Triage inbound NDA and contract requests, distinguishing standard-template turnarounds from redline/negotiation-track requests
• Manage the Docusign environment: envelope creation, template management, user permissions, and signature tracking
• Coordinate and chase signatures across the organization; track all documents pending execution and follow up proactively with signatories
• Flag structural or drafting issues in incoming paper (e.g., mismatched headers and substance, one-sided terms dressed as mutual) before they reach counsel review
• Maintain and continuously improve our contract template library and standard playbook positions
• Build and maintain automated workflows in CLM, covering intake, routing, approvals, and status tracking for NDAs and commercial contracts
• Support the Legal intake system: triage requests, route to the right owner, help refine request types and instructions as volume grows
• Maintain the Legal team's document repository and naming/version-control conventions
• Track and report on legal operations metrics: request volume, turnaround times, and outside counsel spend
• Support outside counsel and vendor management: tracking billing against budget in coordination with finance, assisting with invoice review
• Assist with building out onboarding materials, playbooks, and process documentation for the Legal function as it scales
• Identify opportunities to use AI-native tools to speed up contract review, intake triage, and reporting

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree and/or paralegal certificate
• 4+ years of experience in contracts management, legal operations, or a similar operational/legal support role in a technology, aerospace/defense, or similarly regulated environment
• Demonstrated experience reviewing, drafting, and negotiating vendor contracts and NDAs independently, with good judgment on when to escalate to counsel
• Hands-on experience building or administering workflows in a contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform; e-signature and e-billing tooling experience preferred
• Systems experience beyond CLM—ticketing/intake systems, document management platforms, or productivity suites
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to manage projects and drive cross-functional initiatives
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and written/verbal communication—comfortable building structure where none exists and interfacing directly with stakeholders and counterparties
• Comfort with ambiguity and ownership; high discretion handling confidential and commercially sensitive information

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with export compliance, ITAR, or government contracts environments
• Experience at a high-growth or technology company

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• 401k with 50% company match up to 6% of pay
• FSA and HSA options
• Life insurance
• Free daily lunch
• ‘No meeting Fridays’
• Unlimited PTO
• Casual dress code
• Competitive base salaries and generous pre-IPO stock option grants
• Relocation assistance
• Annual bonuses (coming soon!)

Pay

Salary range: $110,000 - $145,000. The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. Actual salary offer may vary based on work experience, education, training, critical skills, and business considerations.