Commercial Counsel/Senior Counsel

Perplexity; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity is seeking a commercially minded attorney to own the full commercial legal lifecycle, drafting, negotiating, and closing a wide range of technology agreements. You will partner with product, engineering, security, finance, and sales to accelerate deal velocity while maintaining strong risk controls.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years of experience negotiating complex tech agreements and a deep understanding of data privacy and security frameworks, including GDPR and CCPA/CPRA.

Qualifications

• JD and active U.S. state bar membership.
• 5+ years of law firm and/or in-house experience drafting and negotiating complex commercial technology agreements.
• Strong business acumen and ability to partner effectively with sales, product, engineering, and executive teams.
• Deep familiarity with data privacy and security frameworks (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, SOC 2, HIPAA) and experience negotiating DPAs and related compliance agreements.
• Prior experience with infrastructure agreements, including compute procurement and related SLA terms.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end drafting, review, and negotiation of commercial agreements, including MSAs, SaaS and API agreements, DPAs, partnerships and vendor contracts, and IP licensing.
• Provide fast, practical, business-aligned counsel to accelerate deal velocity while managing risk.
• Advise on AI-specific legal considerations in commercial agreements and data use policies.
• Build scalable contract templates, negotiation playbooks, and CLM workflows to support high-volume deals.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Security, Finance, and Compliance to surface legal risk early.

Skills

Commercial acumen

Negotiation

Cross-functional partnering

Clear communication

Hands-on/legal pragmatism

Education

Juris Doctor (JD)

Tools

CLM

Job description

Perplexity is looking for a commercially minded attorney to join our Legal team. In this role, you’ll own the full commercial legal lifecycle. You will draft, negotiate, and close a wide range of agreements across partnerships, procurement, infrastructure, and licensing. You will build scalable legal infrastructure and enable the business to move quickly without unacceptable risk.

You’ll work closely with teams across the business, including product, engineering, security, finance, and sales to close deals, strengthen our data security and compliance posture, and serve as a trusted advisor on the AI-specific legal questions that come with operating at the frontier of this technology. The ideal candidate brings deep experience negotiating a wide range of commercial technology agreements, including infrastructure and compute procurement agreements, a strong command of data privacy and security frameworks, and the practical judgment to make principled risk calls independently. This is a high-impact, hands-on role for someone who thrives in fast-paced environments, knows how to be a true partner to the business without being a bottleneck, and is excited to help build a best-in-class legal function at one of the most consequential AI companies in the world.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end drafting, review, and negotiation of commercial agreements, including MSAs, SaaS and API agreements, DPAs, partnership and reseller agreements, strategic collaboration and co-marketing agreements, procurement and vendor contracts, technology and infrastructure agreements, and IP licensing arrangements.

• Serve as a primary legal partner across the business, providing fast, practical, and business-aligned counsel that accelerates deal velocity without compromising on risk Management.

• Provide strategic counsel on legal risks across AI infrastructure, compute, partnerships, and enterprise deployments as the company scales.

• Advise on AI-specific legal considerations in commercial agreements, including acceptable use, data retention and training restrictions, output liability, and evolving regulatory requirements (e.g., EU AI Act, CCPA/CPRA, GDPR).

• Build and maintain scalable legal infrastructure—contract templates, negotiation playbooks, fallback positions, and tools (e.g., CLM, self-serve workflows)—to support high-volume deal flow and reduce friction in the contracting cycle.

• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Security, Finance, and Compliance teams to surface and address legal risk early, particularly on data use, enterprise integrations, and customer-specific compliance requirements.

• Monitor the evolving regulatory landscape for enterprise AI and SaaS products and translate emerging requirements into practical contractual and policy guidance for internal stakeholders.

Qualifications

• JD and in good standing with an active U.S. state bar membership.

• At least 5+ years of law firm and/or in-house experience, with a track record of drafting and negotiating complex commercial technology agreements.

• Strong business acumen and ability to partner effectively with sales, product, engineering, and executive teams.

• Deep familiarity with data privacy and security frameworks (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, SOC 2, HIPAA) and experience negotiating DPAs and related compliance agreements.

• Prior experience with infrastructure agreements is strongly preferred, including compute procurement (e.g., GPU capacity and cloud/neocloud agreements, colocation, and related SLA and acceptance terms).

• Ability to communicate clearly with business and technical audiences and effectively translate legal concepts for non-lawyers.

• Hands-on attitude to tackle projects large and small, low-ego approach to working across the organization.

• Positive collaborative attitude, comfort with ambiguity and a fast pace, high level of integrity, and intellectual curiosity about AI technology and how these products work.

• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

Title and Pay dependent on YOE (Counsel or Senior Counsel)