Assistant General Counsel

Gauntlet; New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (NY, CA, CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote first — work from anywhere in U

Company retreats

Medical, dental, and vision premiums

WFH stipend

Home internet/phone reimbursement

Unlimited vacation

Paid parental leave

Fertility benefits

Equity opportunity

Incentive compensation

Job summary

Gauntlet is hiring its first Assistant General Counsel in the United States to join as a second senior lawyer. You will own a large part of the commercial legal work, drafting and negotiating client, vendor, and product terms, and creating templates and processes to scale a growing onchain financial business.

You will work directly with the General Counsel, cover the GC’s absence, manage a lean team with outside counsel as needed, and help shape the evolution of Gauntlet's legal function as the

Qualifications

• Strong commercial contracting experience including drafting, negotiating, and closing a high volume of varied agreements.
• In-house experience at a company with a small legal team and independent work expectations.
• Experience building templates, playbooks, processes, or tooling for routine legal work.
• Ability to collaborate with Product, Engineering, Finance, People, Compliance, or other teams.
• JD and active membership in good standing of at least one US state bar.

Responsibilities

• Own commercial contracting end to end: client and institutional agreements, partner and protocol arrangements.
• Negotiate with counterparties and their counsel, including sophisticated institutional clients.
• Advise Product and Engineering; translate legal/regulatory constraints into practical guidance.
• Cover broader legal docket with GC: corporate governance, equity, financing, employment, IP, privacy, disputes, regulatory work.
• Improve contract intake, templates, playbooks, and CLM processes; decide what is in-house vs outside counsel.
• Utilize AI/automation to speed drafting, review, intake, and management where beneficial.

Skills

Commercial contracting

In-house experience

Templates & playbooks

Cross-functional collaboration

Independent work

US bar admission

Risk management

Crypto familiarity

Regulatory knowledge

Product/Engineering collaboration

Education

Juris Doctor (JD)

Tools

Contract lifecycle tooling

AI drafting tools

Job description

The role

Gauntlet is hiring its first Assistant General Counsel. Today, legal work runs through the General Counsel and a small group of outside firms. This role adds a second experienced lawyer to the team, someone who can take meaningful work off the GC's desk, own it end to end, and help shape how the legal function develops as the company grows.

Reporting to the General Counsel, you will own a large part of the commercial legal work. Client agreements, vendor and partner contracts, product terms — you will draft and negotiate them, and build the templates, playbooks, and processes that make the routine work easier to handle.

You will also be the GC's second-in-command. That means covering when they are out, stepping into whatever is most important that week, and being another senior legal voice the business can rely on. You will not have a large team beneath you. You will have outside counsel where it makes sense, and plenty of scope to improve how the function works.

This is a hands-on senior role with meaningful ownership, direct access to company leadership, and the chance to help build a legal function that fits an onchain financial business.

About Gauntlet

Gauntlet builds the financial systems of the future. While much of onchain finance is focused on point solutions, we operate across the entire stack to offer best-in-class vault products. Today, we serve over $1.6B in client TVL across some of the largest fintechs/neobanks, protocols, exchanges, and capital allocators in crypto, and, increasingly, traditional asset management.

Our team brings together traditional finance and crypto-native expertise to deliver durable, sophisticated products for institutional clients moving onchain.

What you'll do;

• Own commercial contracting end to end: client and institutional agreements, partner and protocol arrangements, and other agreements across the business.

• Negotiate directly with counterparties and their counsel, including sophisticated institutional clients working from their own paper.

• Advise Product and Engineering as they design and ship onchain products, turning legal and regulatory constraints into practical guidance.

• Cover the wider legal docket alongside the GC, including corporate and governance matters, equity and financing support, employment questions, IP, privacy, marketing review, disputes, and regulatory work.

• Partner with the Head of Compliance to make sure contractual commitments, policies, and controls stay aligned.

• Help decide what should be handled in-house and where outside counsel adds value.

• Improve legal intake, contract management, templates, playbooks, and other processes that help a small legal team stay effective as the company grows.

• Use AI and automation across drafting, review, intake, and contract management where it makes the work faster or better.

What you bring;

• Strong commercial contracting experience. Including drafting, negotiating, and closing a high volume of varied agreements.

• Time in-house, ideally at a company with a small legal team where you were expected to work independently

• Breadth across several legal areas rather than a single specialty, and the ability to get up to speed quickly on unfamiliar issues.

• Experience building templates, playbooks, processes, or tooling that make routine legal work easier to handle.

• Experience working directly with Product, Engineering, Finance, People, Compliance, or other business teams.

• The ability to give clear, practical guidance without overcomplicating it, and to manage risk without defaulting to the most conservative answer.

• Good judgement and the confidence to raise concerns directly when something does not look right.

• Comfort working in a growing company where priorities and legal questions will keep changing.

• A willingness to stay close to the detail and do the work yourself.

• JD and active membership in good standing of at least one US state bar.

Bonus points

• Experience in crypto, digital assets, fintech, financial services, or onchain financial products.

• Familiarity with the legal and regulatory questions facing businesses operating across traditional and onchain finance.

• Experience advising on financial products or working with sophisticated institutional counterparties.

• Experience supporting financings, equity matters, corporate governance, or regulatory work.

• Experience using AI, automation, contract lifecycle tooling, or other legal technology to make a legal team more effective.

Who will do well here

You will probably enjoy this role if you like owning work from start to finish, are comfortable making decisions, and do not need a large legal team around you to get things done.

You should take a practical approach to risk. We are not looking for someone who defaults to the most conservative answer, but you do need the judgement to know when the answer should be "no."

Commercial contracts will be a big part of the role, but this is not a narrow commercial counsel position. The work will move around. One week may be dominated by an institutional agreement; the next may involve a product launch, employment issue, financing matter, or regulatory question.

Gauntlet communicates directly. We are looking for someone who can explain legal issues plainly, build trust across the company, and become someone teams involve early rather than only when something needs signing or a problem has already surfaced.

Why join now

This is a chance to join Gauntlet as the second senior lawyer and have a real say in how the legal function develops.

You will work closely with the General Counsel and company leadership, take ownership of meaningful work from the start, and help decide what Legal should look like as the business grows.

There is still plenty to build - processes, tooling, templates, ways of working, and decisions about where Legal should spend its time. You will have a meaningful role in shaping all of it.

Benefits and perks;

• Remote first — work from anywhere in the United States

• Regular in-person company retreats and cross-country "office visit" perk

• 100% paid medical, dental, and vision premiums for employees

• $1,000 WFH stipend

• Monthly reimbursement for home internet, phone, and cellular data

• Unlimited vacation

• 100% paid parental leave of 12 weeks

• Fertility benefits

• Opportunity for incentive compensation

Please note at this time our hiring is reserved for potential employees who are able to work within the contiguous United States and Canada. Should you need alternative accommodations, please note that in your application.

The national pay range for this role is $200,000 - $240,000 base plus additional On Target Earnings potential by level and equity in the company. Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for a company of our size and industry, and are one part of many compensation, benefits and other reward opportunities we provide. Individual pay rate decisions are based on a number of factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skill set, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company.