Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist

CHAOS Industries; El Segundo (CA); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits (100% paid)

401k + company match

Free daily lunch

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

CHAOS Industries is seeking a Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist to build and scale the Legal function. You will review, draft, and negotiate commercial agreements, while designing workflows and CLM processes to support growth across business units.

The role blends hands-on contract work with system design, enabling intake through execution and providing cross-functional support to finance, procurement, and leadership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and/or paralegal certificate.
• 4+ years of experience in contracts management, legal operations, or a similar role in tech/aerospace/defense.
• Experience reviewing, drafting, and negotiating vendor contracts and NDAs independently.

Responsibilities

• Review vendor/commercial contracts and NDAs, drafting and negotiating directly with counterparties.
• Draft and negotiate commercial agreements with standard playbook positions and sign-off when needed.
• Triage NDA and contract requests, distinguishing templates from negotiations.
• Manage the DocuSign environment: envelopes, templates, permissions, signatures.

Skills

Contract negotiation

LegalOps

Process automation

Cross-functional collaboration

Analytical thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree and/or paralegal certificate

Tools

CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management)

DocuSign/e-signature

e-billing tooling

Job description

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats.

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com .

Role Overview:

We're looking for a Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist to join our Legal team as we build out the function from the ground up. Reporting to the Head of Legal Operations, you'll be a hybrid player. Hands-on with contract review, negotiation, and drafting support, while also helping design and run the systems and processes that let Legal scale as CHAOS grows across its business units.

This is a foundational hire. You'll help shape how contracts move through our organization — from intake through execution — at a company that's actively building its legal infrastructure rather than inheriting one already in place. Expect genuine range: reviewing and negotiating commercial agreements one day, refining intake workflows or outside counsel reporting the next.

Responsibilities:

Contracts

• Review vendor/commercial contracts and NDAs, drafting and negotiating directly with counterparties and escalating novel or high‑risk issues to counsel
• Draft and negotiate commercial agreements, applying standard playbook positions and knowing when a deviation needs legal sign‑off
• Triage inbound NDA and contract requests, distinguishing standard‑template turnarounds from redline/negotiation‑track requests
• Manage the Docusign environment: envelope creation, template management, user permissions, and signature tracking
• Coordinate and chase signatures across the organization; track all documents pending execution and follow up proactively with signatories
• Flag structural or drafting issues in incoming paper (e.g., mismatched headers and substance, one‑sided terms dressed as mutual) before they reach counsel review
• Maintain and continuously improve our contract template library and standard playbook positions

Legal Operations

• Build and maintain automated workflows in CLM, covering intake, routing, approvals, and status tracking for NDAs and commercial contracts
• Support the Legal intake system: triage requests, route to the right owner, help refine request types and instructions as volume grows
• Maintain the Legal team's document repository and naming/version‑control conventions
• Track and report on legal operations metrics: request volume, turnaround times, and outside counsel spend
• Support outside counsel and vendor management: tracking billing against budget in coordination with finance, assisting with invoice review
• Assist with building out onboarding materials, playbooks, and process documentation for the Legal function as it scales
• Identify opportunities to use AI‑native tools to speed up contract review, intake triage, and reporting
• Bachelor's degree and/or paralegal certificate
• 4+ years of experience in contracts management, legal operations, or a similar operational/legal support role in a technology, aerospace/defense, or similarly regulated environment
• Demonstrated experience reviewing, drafting, and negotiating vendor contracts and NDAs independently, with good judgment on when to escape to counsel
• Hands‑on experience building or administering workflows in a contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform; e‑signature and e‑billing tooling experience preferred
• Systems experience beyond CLM — ticketing/intake systems, document management platforms, or productivity suites
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to manage projects and drive cross‑functional initiatives
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and written/verbal communication — comfortable building structure where none exists and interfacing directly with stakeholders and counterparties
• Comfort with ambiguity and ownership; high discretion handling confidential and commercially sensitive information

Preferred Requirements:

• Experience with export compliance, ITAR, or government contracts environments
• Experience at a high‑growth or technology company preferred

Why CHAOS?

• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
• Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
• Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre‑IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
• Team Growth: 350 employees and counting across 5 global offices

Salary Range: $110,000 - $145,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

Recruiting Agencies: CHAOS Industries does not accept unsolicited resumes or outreach. Unsolicited submissions will not be reviewed or compensated.

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