Corporate Counsel

Ginkgo Bioworks; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 144,000 - 217,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock awards

Medical, dental & vision coverage

Health Savings Account (HSA)

Voluntary benefits

401(k) with employer contribution

Paid holidays

Winter shutdown

Job summary

Ginkgo Bioworks seeks a Corporate Counsel to support business development transactions, advise operations, and negotiate a broad spectrum of agreements within the life sciences space.

You will oversee collaborations, licensing, and procurement contracts, while building scalable legal frameworks for new offerings and maintaining risk-balanced guidance across programs.

Qualifications

• JD and licensed to practice law in the United States.
• 3+ years' experience practicing law in a law firm and/or a corporation.
• On-site 5 days/week.

Responsibilities

• Lead and negotiate a wide range of agreements with customers, vendors, industry partners, and suppliers including hardware purchasing, collaboration and licensing, software and SaaS, master service, material transfer, and procurement contracts.
• Engage cross-functionally with business development, commercial operations, finance, HR, and technical program teams to provide balanced legal advice that manages risk while enabling opportunity.
• Transact across business units by reviewing term sheets, conducting diligence, and drafting/negotiating documents from start to finish.
• Strengthen internal repository of templates, models, and guidance.
• Guide operations and alliance management to maintain partnerships with customers, collaborators, and strategic counterparts.
• Review technical and logistical materials to support business development and programs, ensuring compliance.
• Optimize use of generative AI and legal tech to accelerate workflows while handling multiple deals in a fast-paced environment.
• Collaborate across commercial, technical, and legal teams to create consensus and assign ownership for initiatives.

Skills

Corporate transactions

Contract negotiation

Cross-functional collaboration

Project leadership

Communication

Legal analysis

Education

JD (US)

BA/BS degree

Tools

Software agreements

SaaS agreements

Master service agreements

Material transfer agreements

Procurement contracts

Job description

Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe's growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our bioengineers make use of an in-house automated foundry for designing and building new organisms.

Ginkgo Introduction

Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is the world leader in automation of biological workflows. We offer autonomous laboratories that replace manual laboratory work with robotics in the lab and have also built an in-house autonomous lab on which we run our own programs, as well as, make available to companies and organizations for use as a "cloud lab." These innovations allow scientists to run more experiments, run them faster, and more reliably, accelerating scientific discovery across multiple industries.

Team Introduction

As a member of our Corporate Legal Team, you will be focused on providing creative solutions to help drive these groundbreaking endeavors at Ginkgo, and we're seeking a talented, motivated, and energetic Corporate Counsel to join our team. Candidates should have enthusiasm for exploring with internal clients business-oriented solutions to problems, in a manner that incorporates sound legal advice. In particular, you'll support the growth of our business by overseeing business development transactions, supporting and advising our operations, leading and negotiating agreements, engaging with existing collaborators, architecting the legal framework for new offerings and more. With your in-depth legal experience in supporting business development, logistics, and customer relationships in the life sciences and biotechnology space, your role will be critical to Ginkgo's success.

Qualifications

• BA/BS degree
• JD and licensed to practice law in the United States
• 3+ years' experience practicing law in a law firm and/or a corporation
• Expectation to be on-site 5 days/week

Responsibilities

• Lead and negotiate a wide range of agreements with customers, vendors, industry partners, and suppliers-including hardware purchasing agreements, collaboration and licensing agreements, software and SaaS agreements, master service agreements, material transfer agreements, and procurement contracts.
• Engage cross-functionally with business development, commercial operations, finance, human resources, and technical program teams to provide balanced legal advice that manages risk while enabling business opportunity in a compliant manner.
• Transact across our several business units by reviewing term sheets, conducting diligence activities, and drafting and negotiating transaction documents from start to finish.
• Strengthen Ginkgo's legal infrastructure by growing our internal repository of agreement templates, models, guidances, and professional development materials.
• Guide commercial operations and alliance management to establish and maintain strong partnerships with existing customers, collaborators, and strategic counterparts.
• Review technical and logistical materials to support our business development and program teams, ensuring compliance across associated transactions and new offerings.
• Optimize the responsible use of generative AI and other legal technology tools to accelerate and systematize workflows, while managing multiple deals and matters simultaneously in a fast-paced, constantly evolving environment.
• Work collaboratively across Ginkgo's commercial, technical, and legal teams to support our lab automation focus-speaking clearly and directly with multiple stakeholders to create consensus and assign ownership for complex initiatives.

What You'll Bring

• Grounded expertise with a minimum of 3 years working as a lawyer in a legal environment, with a JD required; years of experience in a high-pressure law firm setting will be considered when determining minimum experience. Law firm and in-house experience preferred.
• In-depth experience with complex transactions, including software and technology agreements, licenses, material transfers, and collaborations, as well as general corporate transactions such as stock purchase agreements, investor agreements, and services agreements.
• Nimble and adaptable work style, with the ability to discern between low-impact and high-impact efforts and make wise decisions about time management in a dynamic environment.
• Keen project leadership, with ample experience managing programs with company-wide impact that require significant indirect and cross-functional influence, while directing resources efficiently with cost control in mind.
• Good judgment and a reputation for making balanced decisions that weigh risk against business opportunity, paired with a history of honest, direct, and timely communication of issues as they arise.
• Ownership mentality with a can-do attitude and humble approach to work allocation-independently identifying matters that need attention, maintaining diligent knowledge management, and ensuring strong communication and collaboration with internal and external counterparts. Dedication to making biology easier to engineer.

It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants.

The base salary range for this role is $144,400-$217,200. Actual pay within this range will depend on a candidate's skills, expertise, and experience. We also offer company stock awards, a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental & vision coverage, health spending accounts, voluntary benefits, leave of absence policies, 401(k) program with employer contribution, 8 paid holidays in addition to a full-week winter shutdown and unlimited Paid Time Off policy.

Ginkgo has implemented a return to office policy effective October 1, 2025 with required in-office days 5x per week. Some teams may require to be onsite 4-5 days per week and this will be discussed as part of the interview process. This policy applies to all employees who live within 50 miles of Ginkgo's offices in Boston, MA, Emeryville, CA and West Sacramento, CA.