Founding Legal Counsel

Pinpoint; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Unlimited holidays

Mental health support

Retirement contributions

Remote-first

Equity with real upside

Parental leave

Learning budget

Job summary

Pinpoint, a high growth HR tech company, is seeking a Founding Legal Counsel to own the legal function end-to-end, from contract markup to governance. This remote UK role shapes our commercial, privacy, and product legal posture as we scale.

You will build templates, triage intake, and partner with Product and Sales. This hands-on role has no direct reports and requires a pragmatic approach to risk in a fast-paced startup.

Qualifications

• Qualified lawyer with commercial contracting experience in SaaS.
• In-house experience at a scaling startup (50–250 staff).
• Experience across data protection, product, and commercial contracts.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end commercial contracting, including MSAs and DPAs.
• Build playbooks, templates, and processes for deals.
• Lead data protection efforts across the business (GDPR, etc.).
• Drive due diligence and cleanup of historic exposures.

Skills

Commercial contracting

In-house experience

SaaS contracting

Regulatory awareness

Data protection

Negotiation

Strong communication

Education

Qualified lawyer (England & Wales)

Tools

AI tools (Claude)

Job description

Founding Legal Counsel

Department: Operations

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Remote

Reporting To: Chief Operating Officer

Description

Hi I'm Ellis, COO at Pinpoint. We're a high growth HR tech company building software that helps in house recruitment teams attract, hire, and onboard the right talent. Today we have a strong foundation in place: a mature product, rapid growth, strong product market fit, and happy customers.

We've built strong operational foundations, but we've never had a dedicated lawyer. Legal work has been landing on the ops team, and the volume is climbing fast: contract volume is up sharply, and the product is moving into even more regulated territory. We need someone to own the legal end to end so our deals keep moving and our customers stay confident. That's where you come in.

The fine print (but way more exciting):

• This is a remote role based in the UK with occasional in-person team meetups.
• You'll be our first dedicated legal hire, so you're building the function and inheriting the old contracts and processes at the same time.
• You'll be the sole member of the legal team and will own both the judgment and the tactical. work: marking up contracts, chasing signatures, building templates, and staying on top of compliance.
• There's no one to delegate to, and there's no escalation for the day-to-day slog.
• The volume is heavy, and the pace is fast. This role suits someone who likes to build and who's hands-on; it's not a quiet compliance desk.
• Our values actually matter here. We hire people who reflect them in how they work, collaborate, and make decisions.

About the Role

Sales legal (35%)

• Own commercial contracting end to end: our MSA, DPA, and customer red lines. You're who the Account Executives bring a marked up agreement to, and you're who closes it out
• Turn around a high volume of reviews at pace. Contract volume is spiking, driven by growth and by the rise in AI usage, and we need someone commercial and pragmatic to own it
• Set and publish a legal SLA for sales, so turnaround is a promise, not a guess
• Own our risk tolerance and playbook: liability caps, indemnities, termination. Know where we flex, where we hold, and when to escape
• Run legal intake: triage what needs you, what sales can self serve, and what genuinely needs external counsel
• Build the playbooks, fallback positions, and templates that let AEs answer the easy questions without you

Product legal (20%)

• Partner with Product and Engineering as we build in a regulated space: background screening, right to work, DBS and credit checks, and AI-assisted hiring features
• Own regulatory compliance as the landscape shifts: UK and EU GDPR, FCRA, the EU AI Act, and a growing patchwork of US state law

Partnerships, NDAs, and supplier terms (15%)

• Draft and negotiate partnership, reseller, and referral agreements, including integration and marketplace partners
• Own NDAs, supplier and vendor terms, and the contract lifecycle from template to signature to renewal
• Negotiate with suppliers and integration partners so those terms stay robust and commercial

Data protection, governance, and audit readiness (30%)

• Own data protection across the business: our DPA, sub processor management, DPIAs, DSARs, records of processing, and international transfers
• Keep us on the right side of UK and EU GDPR, US state privacy law, and the local regimes that surface in deals (Quebec Law 25 and China's PIPL are recent examples)
• Make audit readiness a habit, not a scramble, with policies that reflect what we actually do
• Lead due diligence readiness: corporate housekeeping, share and option documentation, and cleaning up historic contractual exposure before someone else finds it

About You

• A qualified lawyer (England and Wales, or an equivalent common law jurisdiction) with real commercial contracting experience, including in-house time at a SaaS business
• Experience as in-house counsel in a scaling startup (50–250 people) where you've built legal infrastructure from limited resources and moved at fast pace
• Time served on both sides: trained at a firm, then moved in-house, with enough SaaS contracting to have a clear point of view
• Breadth over narrow specialism: comfort owning legal end-to-end, from a small order form to our data posture to exit readiness, across commercial contracting, data protection, and product legal
• A bias toward finding the defensible yes and containing the risk, rather than blocking deals and calling it caution
• Comfort making the call: assessing the ask, proposing the route, and escalating only the genuine trade-offs, rather than needing every decision to be precedented or signed off from above
• Technically adept and quick to pick up new tools. Pinpoint leans heavily on AI, Claude in particular, so comfort getting up to speed fast and pushing it further matters
• Clear, concise communication that enables other teams rather than blocking them
• Happy working independently and highly self-motivated, with a habit of unblocking problems and proposing a route forward

What We Offer

We want Pinpoint to be the best place you've ever worked—somewhere you feel valued, supported, and excited to grow. Here's what you'll get:

• Comprehensive healthcare – Excellent medical, dental, & vision coverage for you and your family
• Unlimited holidays – Take the time you need to rest and recharge
• Mental health support – Unlimited, immediate access to professional counseling via Spill
• Retirement contributions – 401k or pension contributions depending on your location
• Remote-first – Work where you're most productive, with flexibility and trust as the default
• Equity with real upside – Share in the long-term value you help create
• Fully paid parental leave – Up to 16 weeks of paid leave for new parents
• Learning budget – Annual funds for courses, books, or anything that supports your growth

A detailed overview of our benefits can be found here.