Associate General Counsel, Data Center

Crux, Inc.; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 250,000 - 450,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision coverage

401(k) Plan with 4% company match

Hybrid schedule: four days in-office,

Job summary

Crux AI, a U.S.-based integrated AI infrastructure company, seeks a lead lawyer to secure, build, and power its data center fleet. Reporting to the General Counsel, you will own all site-related legal work from LOI to energization and commissioning, and you will scale a team of 1–3 counsel as volume grows.

This is a builder's seat: draft forms, playbooks, and positions to enable rapid signing while protecting Crux's interests across multi-gigawatt capacity plans.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of legal experience in real estate, construction, energy, or infrastructure deals.
• Direct responsibility for closing large-scale development deals end to end.
• Experience managing outside counsel across jurisdictions.
• In-house data center legal experience preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead structuring and negotiation of site transactions: 1P/3P leases and BTS.
• Own construction and procurement contracts: EPC, GMP, long-lead equipment.
• Negotiate power and interconnection agreements with the Energy team.
• Run diligence: title, survey, zoning, environmental, permits.
• Build Crux's data center playbooks and standard forms.
• Hire and lead 1–3 counsel as volume grows.

Skills

Legal experience

Contract negotiation

Team leadership

In-house counsel

Education

Bar admission California

Tools

Contract management systems

Legal research tools

Job description

Built to set the gold standard for integrated AI infrastructure

Crux AI is a newly formed, U.S.-based integrated AI infrastructure company created to remove the physical and operational constraints on consequential AI ambitions. Crux brings together power, high-density data centers, TPU silicon, networking, orchestration software, and ongoing operations as one integrated system.

Crux is being capitalized to plan every layer together, develop each one to demanding standards, and operate the whole system with efficiency and reliability. That gives hyperscalers, frontier AI labs, sovereign customers, enterprises, and AI-native companies greater freedom to pursue the AI they are here to create.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

You will be the lead lawyer for how Crux secures, builds, and powers its data center fleet.

Reporting to our General Counsel, you will own the legal side of every site from first LOI through energization and Level 5 commissioning: land and powered-shell acquisitions, build-to-suit and colocation leases, EPC and construction contracts, long-lead equipment procurement, utility interconnection and power supply agreements, and the project-level documents that lenders and partners rely on. You will start as a hands-on practitioner and build a team of 1 to 3 counsel as deal volume grows.

This is a builder's seat: you will set the forms, playbooks, and positions of record that let Crux sign quickly without signing badly, from our first phase of capacity through a multi-gigawatt fleet.

In this role, you will:

• Lead the structuring, drafting, and negotiation of site transactions across first-party (1P) greenfield and third-party (3P) powered shells, build-to-suit (BTS), and colocation: purchase and sale agreements, ground and synthetic leases, options, easements, and development agreements.

• Own the construction and procurement contract stack: EPC, design-build, and GMP agreements, long-lead equipment purchase agreements (switchgear, transformers, generators, chillers, and direct-to-chip liquid cooling), and the warranty, delay, and liquidated damages terms that protect Stage 1 and Stage 2 schedules.

• Negotiate power with our Energy team: utility service and interconnection agreements, large-load and electric service agreements, PPAs and other energy supply arrangements, and on-site or behind-the-meter generation.

• Run diligence the build can trust: title, survey, zoning and entitlements, environmental (Phase I/II), permitting, and utility capacity commitments, with findings translated into go, fix, or walk recommendations.

• Build and maintain Crux's data center playbooks: standard forms, fallback positions, and approval thresholds, so Site Selection & Development, Capacity Delivery, and Facility Operations can move without waiting on Legal for routine calls.

• Partner with Corporate & Corporate Finance Legal and Capital Markets on project-level financings and lender diligence, with Tax on property tax, sales and use tax, and incentive or abatement agreements, and with Finance on the site inputs to the cost and margin model of record.

• Select and manage outside counsel to a budget, keeping strategy, judgment, and institutional knowledge in house.

• Hire and lead a team of 1 to 3 counsel as volume grows. Hire people better than you at their craft, then stay close enough to know when something is off before it shows up in a report.

SIGNALS OF SUCCESS

After 60 days in this role:

• Gained a complete understanding of the capacity plan of record, the active site pipeline, and the Blackstone and Google partnership terms that shape site-level commitments, and published a written data center legal plan with priorities and risk positions.

• Put the first standard forms in place (LOI, NDA, site access, and a construction contract baseline) with clear approval thresholds.

• Established working cadences with Site Selection & Development, Capacity Delivery, Energy, and Finance, and built an outside counsel bench by jurisdiction.

• Adapted to a fast-paced environment, triaging appropriately and continuously improving our function.

After 6 months:

• Closed the site, construction, and power agreements for our first phase of capacity on the committed timeline, with no legal surprises between signing and energization.

• Delivered a data center contract playbook the business uses to self-serve routine terms and elevate only the real decisions.

• Defined the hiring plan for your team and made your first hire(s) as deal volume requires.

• Demonstrated an AI-forward and automated approach to this role: you have built, in a hands-on way, AI-enabled tools for diligence review, contract comparison against our playbook, or obligation tracking that the team uses every day.

After 1 year:

• Running a repeatable legal process across a multi-site pipeline, where each new site closes faster than the last and on terms at or better than our playbook.

• Built a small, high-performing data center legal team, with outside counsel spend that is predictable and falling per site.

• Made Legal a recognized accelerator of the build program rather than the last stop before signature.

EXPERIENCES, ATTRIBUTES AND MINDSET THAT INDICATE A GOOD MATCH

Experiences

• 10+ years of legal experience in real estate, construction, energy, or infrastructure transactions, combining top-tier law firm training with significant in-house experience.

• Direct responsibility for closing large-scale development deals end to end: land or powered-shell acquisitions, BTS or colocation leases, EPC or design-build contracts, and utility or power agreements for data center, energy, or heavy industrial projects.

• Experience managing outside counsel across jurisdictions and leading or mentoring other lawyers.

Attributes

• You are outcome driven and hands-on. You draft and turn documents yourself, you can go deep on an LD cap or an interconnection milestone with the deal team, and then explain the tradeoff in two sentences to the executive team. This is a builder's seat, not a supervisory one.

• You speak the language of construction and power. You understand schedules, critical path, long-lead equipment, and utility processes well enough to know which contract terms actually move risk.

• You have a high tolerance for ambiguity. You absorb ambiguity and navigate complexity rather than passing it along.

Mindset

• You are skeptical by default. "300MW available" is a hypothesis until it is in a signed agreement with a date and a remedy. You build the system that makes the next closing boring.

• You operate as an owner, not a supervisor.

• You are AI-agentic first. Fluent with AI agents, or committed to becoming so quickly, you embed them as first principles in how you and your team work, defaulting to agentic workflows before adding headcount or process.

Nice to have (Preferred, not required):

• In-house data center legal experience at a hyperscaler (Google, AWS, Microsoft, Meta), a neocloud (CoreWeave, Crusoe, Lambda, Nebius), or a data center developer or operator.

• Experience with utility regulatory processes, large-load tariffs, or ISO/RTO interconnection.

• Experience with project finance, construction lending, or joint venture structures at the asset level.

• Bar admission in California or in a key data center market, or eligibility to register as in-house counsel.

• Experience in both startup and scaled enterprise environments, including building a legal function from its first hires.

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been estimated based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Crux

• We offer generous base, bonus and additional incentive based compensation

• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

• Company-paid life insurance and disability

• Full suite of other optional benefits

• 401(k) Plan with 4% company match

• Hybrid schedule offering four days in-office collaboration paired with one remote workday for focused, individual work