Senior Legal Counsel

Summary

Placer.ai is looking for a Senior Legal Counsel to join a lean, high-performing Legal team that is close to the business and directly involved in revenue, product, data and strategic company decisions. Reporting to the GC, this person will focus primarily on complex commercial contracting and data partnerships at the outset, with a broader Legal leadership path over time as the person builds context and trust across the business. This is a high-ownership role for someone who wants to work on sophisticated commercial, data licensing, privacy, AI, product and strategic partnership issues while helping build the Legal function as the company scales. You'll lead important negotiations, improve Legal systems, partner closely with business leaders and take on key Legal projects across areas such as corporate governance, employment, equity, disputes, privacy, product counseling and outside counsel management. The right candidate is a self-starter who is comfortable with ambiguity and able to operate independently with sound judgment after ramping into the business.

Responsibilities

• Initial Commercial Contracting and Data Partnerships Focus
  • Lead complex commercial negotiations, including enterprise customer MSAs, license agreements, government reseller agreements, professional services agreements, vendor agreements and strategic partnership agreements; serve as a senior escalation point for high-value or complex deals
  • Own inbound data provider agreements, including data rights, licensing structures and IP issues that are critical to Placer's product infrastructure
  • Collaborate with GTM, Deal Desk, Partnerships, Security, Product and Compliance on deal structuring, escalations and processes; improve playbooks, templates, fallback positions and standards while giving practical risk guidance
• Strategic Legal Generalist Work
  • Lead or support broader Legal workstreams, including corporate governance, employment and HR matters, equity and compensation, pre-litigation disputes, policy development and outside counsel management
• Privacy, AI, & Product Counseling
  • Advise on privacy and data protection matters for Placer's location analytics platform, partnering with Compliance, Product, Security and Engineering on privacy-by-design practices
  • Translate privacy, data and AI governance developments into practical business guidance, with support from subject-matter experts and outside counsel where appropriate
  • Partner with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Security and GTM teams on new feature launches, AI-related functionality, data use questions and product risk assessments
• Legal Operations & Technology
  • Use and help develop AI tools and legal technology to improve the speed, scale and quality of Legal work, including contract review, research and workflow automation
  • Identify recurring Legal and business friction points and turn them into scalable workflows

What Success Looks Like

You help deals move faster while maintaining legal discipline. You are trusted by leadership to manage complex negotiations and sensitive situations independently. You identify recurring issues and build practical systems to solve them. Over time, you become a go-to Legal partner for broader company priorities and help the function scale with the business.

Requirements

• 8+ years of legal experience, including meaningful in-house experience at a technology, SaaS, data, or other high-growth B2B company
• Strong commercial contracting and tech transactions experience, including the ability to lead complex negotiations independently and exercise sound judgment about when to push, compromise, or escalate
• Breadth across legal issues that commonly arise in a scaling tech company, with deep experience in at least one area such as privacy, product counseling, corporate governance, employment, equity or disputes
• Comfortable operating as a senior resource on a lean team and as a strong individual contributor with the judgment, ownership and communication style to grow into broader legal leadership
• Excellent legal judgment and communication skills. You separate real risk from theoretical risk, distill complex legal issues into clear narratives for any audience and calibrate legal risk against business objectives
• Practical fluency with AI and legal technology, including experience building AI-powered workflows, a mindset that sees AI as a force multiplier and good judgment about where these tools can improve legal work and where human review, escalation or additional controls are needed
• J.D. from an accredited law school; active membership in at least one U.S. state bar in good standing
• This is a fully remote position, but due to the nature and requirements of the role, candidates must be based in the U.S.

Nice To Haves

• Demonstrated use of AI tools to work more efficiently—whether professionally or personally—and a curiosity for finding new ways to apply them
• Comfort integrating generative AI into day-to-day workflows to boost productivity, quality, and output

Pay

The U.S. annualized pay range for this position is $200,000 - $240,000 USD total On Target Earnings (OTE = base salary + bonus target). Compensation offered within the stated range may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including job-related skills, professional experience, education and licenses (if applicable), work location and compensation market data.

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision coverage
• Flexible time off
• 401K
• Equity awards for certain roles