Commercial Counsel/Senior Commercial Counsel

runwayml.com; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Runway is seeking an experienced Commercial Counsel to join our team in New York City or remotely across the U.S. In this pivotal role, you will lead customer negotiations, develop legal frameworks for our generative AI solutions, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive business success.

We value diverse backgrounds and are committed to maintaining pay equity. The ideal candidate will have significant experience in B2B SaaS contracts and a robust understanding of the emerging legal landscape in AI. This is an opportunity to shape the future of technology.

Qualifications

• A minimum of 6 years in negotiating complex commercial contracts.
• Experience in B2B SaaS legal teams at late-stage private or public companies.
• Ability to thrive in fast-paced, unstructured environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead negotiations with customers and strategic partners.
• Implement commercial processes and tools for scaling.
• Empower sales teams with knowledge and tools.

Skills

B2B SaaS contract negotiation

Strategic IP partnerships

Data privacy compliance

Strong business acumen

Growth mindset

Education

J.D. degree

Tools

Legal tech stack

Job description

We are building AI to simulate the world through merging art and science.

We believe that world models are at the frontier of progress in artificial intelligence. Language models alone won’t solve the world’s hardest problems – robotics, disease, scientific discovery. Real progress requires models that experience the world and learn from their mistakes, the same way that humans do. And this kind of trial and error can be massively accelerated when done in simulation, rather than in the real world.

World models offer the most clear path to general‑purpose simulation, changing how stories are told, how scientific progress is made and how the next frontiers of humanity are reached.

Our team consists of creative, open‑minded, caring and ambitious people who are determined to change the world. We aspire to continuously build impossible things and our ability to do so relies on building an incredible team. If you are driven to do the same, we'd love to hear from you.

About the role

*Preference for NYC/Eastern Time Zone, but open to hiring in our SF and Seattle offices as well as remote across the US

Join the frontier of shaping generative AI video and its legal landscape as an early lawyer at Runway. We are looking to hire a Commercial Counsel who has a strong background in B2B SaaS customer negotiations and strategic IP‑heavy partnerships. You are a self‑starter who thrives at getting things done in fast‑paced, unstructured environments. You have a passion for helping companies build and bringing scalable initiatives across our commercial and other legal workstreams.

While the role is in large part focused on the commercial legal function, you might also bring to the table generalist experience across domains such as data privacy, vendor negotiations, and compliance. You will serve as a strategic thought partner to cross‑functional teams from sales to partnerships to marketing and to the Runway Executive Team. Comfort working within a highly technical, rapidly evolving area of the law is a must.

What you’ll do

• Lead negotiations with Runway’s customers and strategic partners. These include B2B SaaS customer contracts for our generative AI SaaS platform and APIs, DPAs, partnership agreements, and vendor agreements.
• Implement commercial processes, tools, and infrastructure to help us scale, including improving templates, playbooks, and our legal tech stack.
• Empower the sales team with tools and knowledge to close deals quickly.
• Dive into the technical aspects of our generative AI products to learn them inside and out, to inform your advice to the business.
• Closely follow technical, legal, and policy developments in the generative AI space.
• Manage outside counsel as appropriate.

What you’ll need

• A J.D. and admission in good standing with at least one state bar.
• 6+ years of experience negotiating complex commercial contracts, including significant experience on a commercial legal team at a fast‑paced late stage private or mid‑sized public B2B SaaS company.
• In addition to B2B SaaS customer contract negotiations, experience with strategic IP‑heavy partnerships and preferably B2C legal issues as well.
• Strong business acumen.
• The capacity to think big; a bias for action; and a willingness to take ownership.
• Growth mindset that prioritizes continuous operational improvement and service excellence.
• Experience with scaling business processes globally and operating in environments that have achieved significant scale.
• Excitement about generative AI and motivation to continuously learn more about the legal landscape governing a new and exciting industry.
• Nice to have: experience managing privacy programs relating to marketing, users, and enterprise customer/vendor agreements.

Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide.

There are many factors that go into salary determinations, including relevant experience, skill level and qualifications assessed during the interview process, and maintaining internal equity with peers on the team. The range shared below is a general expectation for the function as posted, but we are also open to considering candidates who may be more or less experienced than outlined in the job description. In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range.

Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates.

Working at Runway

Great things come from great teams. We’d love to hear from you.

We’re committed to creating a space where our employees can bring their full selves to work and have equal opportunity to succeed. So regardless of race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, origin, ability, age, veteran status, if joining this mission speaks to you, we encourage you to apply.

More about Runway

• Universal World Simulator
• GWM‑1
• Gen‑4.5
• General World Models
• Robotics SDK
• Conversational Real‑time Agents
• Runway Studios

We're excited to be recognized as a best place to work:

Crain’s | InHerSight | BuiltIn NYC | INC