Legal Counsel

Echelon; Riyadh; On-site; SAR 300,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Echelon is seeking a Legal Counsel to manage day-to-day legal work across the group, including drafting, negotiating, and closing matters under group standards. You will maintain corporate records, handle governance tasks, and work with GC and external counsel.

The role is ideal for a lawyer early in career with Saudi exposure and strong English drafting skills. The position requires admission to practice in Saudi Arabia, a law degree, and the ability to operate with speed and sound judgement in

Qualifications

• Qualified lawyer admitted to practice in Saudi Arabia.
• Experience in technology, commercial or corporate work.
• Fluent in English; Arabic is a strong advantage.

Responsibilities

• Partner & commercial contracting from NDA to term sheet and referral agreements.
• Templates & playbooks: NDA, revenue share terms, scope of work and employment contracts.
• Corporate housekeeping: board/shareholder resolutions, registers, shareholders agreement and share plans.
• Employment & regulatory: contracts, performance bonuses, Saudi labour-law compliance.
• Intellectual property: protect group IP and partner IP boundaries in deployments.

Skills

Curiosity

Speed of learning

Ownership & pace

Judgement

Saudi regulatory exposure

Education

Law degree

Saudi Bar admission

Job description

Legal Counsel

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Full-time Independent Group functions

CONTEXT & MANDATE

Echelon is a Saudi-born, sovereign technology company that brings leading global AI technologies to the Kingdom, deploys them with its own forward deployed engineering organisation, compounds partner technology into Echelon IP and, over time, productises Saudi-developed capability.

Echelon contracts continuously: a portfolio of technology partners on structural, programme and referral agreements, MOUs and term sheets with defence and energy technology companies, customer Scopes of Work delivered by Frontier, and a share plan that reaches every employee.

You will run the day-to-day legal work of the group: drafting, negotiating and closing under the group’s standards, keeping the corporate house in order, and working with the General Counsel and external counsel on the matters that need them. Under the Delegation of Authority the Managing Director is the only signatory, so the quality of what reaches his desk is the whole of the job.

You will carry files from first draft to signature, hold Echelon’s positions on exclusivity, margin protection and first right of refusal for Frontier, and decide what needs the General Counsel and what does not. The method exists; you own the outcome inside it and decide the sequencing and the trade-offs, so that most files close on standard paper and the exceptions get the attention they deserve.

This is a seat for a qualified lawyer — admitted to practice, with the training that comes with it — who is early in their career and has the head for it: one who would rather be the only counsel in the room than one of twenty. The legal function grows next year; you will have shaped how it works before it does.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

• Partner & commercial contracting — NDAs, MOUs, term sheets, referral and revenue-share agreements and Scopes of Work, from first draft to signature through the DoA signature process.

• Templates & playbooks — The recurring instruments — partner referral agreement, Partner Revenue Share terms, Scope of Work, NDA, employment contract and amendment — so that most files close on standard paper.

• Corporate housekeeping — Board and shareholder resolutions, registers, the shareholders’ agreement and the share plan documentation for the holding company and the Saudi operating company, with the GNRC.

• Employment & regulatory — Contracts, performance-bonus amendments, policies and Saudi labour-law compliance with the People function; the regulatory perimeter around data, licensing and, with Echelon Defense Industries, clearance-bound activity.

• Intellectual property — Engineering IP held at group level, partner IP boundaries in every deployment, and the protection of Echelon-developed capability as it is productised.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

A lawyer who reads fast, drafts clean and marks uncertainty rather than inventing a position. You find contracts interesting because of what they make possible, not because of what they prevent.

• Curiosity — You want to understand the deal before you paper it: where the value sits, what the partner actually wants, what the technology does. You hold the position that protects it.

• Speed of learning — An unfamiliar instrument — a share plan, a referral agreement, a defence MOU — comes back from you as a workable draft, not as a list of questions.

• Ownership & pace — A file is yours from first draft to signature. You turn a term sheet in days and keep the corporate record current without being asked.

• Judgement — Pragmatic on commercial points, immovable on the ones that matter. You lift the right things and explain why in three sentences.

• Where you are — A qualified lawyer — a law degree and admission to practice are required — with practice in Saudi Arabia or substantial Saudi exposure, in technology, commercial or corporate work; fluent legal drafting in English, Arabic a strong advantage. What you have closed counts for more than how many years you have been closing.

THE SEAT

Reports to: General Counsel
Location: Riyadh