Senior Commercial Counsel

Sonar; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible comprehensive employee benefit package

23 days of PTO per calendar year

401(k) plan with 4% match

Fully paid parking

Monthly catered events

Job summary

A technology company in Austin is seeking a dynamic legal professional to manage commercial contracting and support global procurement needs. You will negotiate diverse transactions and collaborate with various teams to ensure compliance and efficiency. Ideal candidates will have a strong legal foundation with experience in contract negotiations, particularly within the technology sector. This role offers opportunities for ownership and initiative in a fast-paced environment, along with flexible work arrangements.

Qualifications

• Bar admission with 4+ years of experience in commercial/technology law.
• Strong understanding of contract negotiations for software and SaaS.
• Excellent negotiation and drafting skills.

Responsibilities

• Negotiate commercial transactions including sales and vendor agreements.
• Collaborate with legal, sales, and finance teams on legal matters.
• Advise on key issues and risks in contracts.
• Lead development of efficient contracting processes.
• Manage dynamic workload of legal issues supporting company initiatives.

Skills

Negotiation skills

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Communication

Contract management

Education

Bar admission

4+ years of commercial/technology experience

Tools

Salesforce

LinkSquares

Jira Service Management

Job description

Who is Sonar?

Sonar helps prevent code quality and code security issues from reaching production, amplifies developers' productivity in concert with AI assistants, and improves the developer experience with streamlined workflows. Sonar analyzes all code, regardless of who writes it — your internal team, genAI, or third parties — resulting in more secure, reliable, and maintainable applications. Rooted in the open source community, Sonar’s solutions support over 30 programming languages, frameworks, and infrastructure technologies. Today, Sonar is trusted by +7M developers worldwide, including teams Microsoft, NASA, MasterCard, and T‑Mobile.

We believe in developing great products that are supported by great internal teams and a strong culture. We are highly committed to and obsessed with the company, users, each other, and our open source community. We have high standards and hold each other accountable for acting with positivity, dedication, thoughtfulness, empathy, and passion daily.

We are deliberate with our decisions with high clarity of intention. At the same time, we feel extreme urgency and move forward quickly.

And lastly, we are highly effective and operationally efficient. We operate collectively as One Team to accomplish our goals.

At Sonar, CODE is more than just an acronym – it's a mindset that defines daily operations.

Why You Should Apply

At Sonar, we’re a group of brilliant, motivated, and driven professionals working hard to help supercharge developers to build better, faster. Sonar helps to continuously improve code quality and code security while reducing developer toil. This means that developers can focus on doing more of what they love and less of what they don’t. Our solutions don’t just solve symptoms of problems – we help fix issues at the source – for all code, whether it's developer-written, AI-generated, or from third parties.

We have a dynamic culture with employees worldwide and hub offices in the USA, Switzerland, the UK, Singapore, and Germany. Team members should be able to come to work every day, work on a product they are proud of, love what they do, and feel energized by their peers. With our roots deep in the open source community, we’re all about the mission: supercharge developers to build better, faster.

The Impact You Will Have

We are looking for an exceptional and dynamic legal professional who can balance protecting our company with supercharging our growing global business. As a key member on the commercial squad of our legal team, you will drive initiatives and manage critical matters relating to commercial contracting. This may include managing contract reviews and negotiations in support of our global procurement needs, our Asia‑Pacific‑Japan sales region, our Europe‑Middle East‑Africa sales region, and channel partner network, depending on your interest and experience. We are seeking a proactive, solution‑oriented thinker who is ready to take ownership and elevate the team’s performance. Reporting line and title will depend on the candidate, as we are open to a range of seniority levels.

What You Will Do Daily

• Lead critical commercial matters by independently negotiating a diverse range of complex commercial transactions, including sales agreements, vendor contracts, and channel partnership deals.
• Drive strategic alignment across the business by collaborating with legal, sales, procurement, finance, IT security, and executive teams to find creative, compliant, and business‑enabling solutions.
• Manage risk by advising internal stakeholders regarding key issues and risks in our contracts and ensure that our agreements reflect the most effective internal negotiating strategies.
• Pioneer efficiency improvements by leading the development and maintenance of a streamlined, efficient, and scalable contracting process, leveraging technology like contract management systems and AI drafting tools to clear blockers and find solutions.
• Embrace new challenges and manage a dynamic workload of emergent legal issues, supporting high‑growth company initiatives relating to product development, privacy compliance, and other matters.

The Experience You Will Need

• Strong Legal Foundation: Bar admission with 4+ years of commercial/technology experience, with a particular focus in negotiating customer and vendor agreements. Prior in‑house experience with an international technology/software company preferred but private practice will also be considered.
• Exceptional Communication & Influence: Demonstrated ability to develop strong, collaborative relationships with key stakeholders and teams across the business, backed by excellent negotiation and drafting skills.
• Initiative & Domain Leadership: A strong understanding of key issues that impact contract negotiations for software and SaaS, with direct experience being a significant plus. The capacity to lead complex matters from start to finish.
• Adaptability & Ownership: The ability to prioritize, manage multiple work streams, and maintain composure in a fast‑paced environment.
• Start‑up Mentality: A willingness to roll up your sleeves, clear blockers, think creatively, and consistently find solutions to support the business in driving projects to completion.
• Global Fluency: Excellent English written/verbal communication skills and flexibility with your work schedule to accommodate occasional calls outside of your regular time zone.
• Technological Drive: Demonstrated capacity to quickly master and implement new contract management tools like Salesforce, LinkSquares, Jira Service Management, and generative AI tools.

Why You’ll Love It Here

• Our culture and mission set us apart. We have a dynamic work culture that values respect and kindness and embraces the right to fail (and get right back up again!).
• Great people make a great company. We value people skills as much as technical skills and strive to keep things friendly while still being passionate leaders in our domains.
• We have a flexible work policy that includes 3 days in‑office and 2 days work‑from‑home each week for those located near our office locations; some locations such as Dubai, India, Japan and Australia operate fully remotely.
• We have a growth mindset. We love learning and believe continuous education is critical to our success. In an ever‑changing industry, new skills are necessary, and we’re happy to help our team acquire them.
• As the leader in our field, our products and services are as strong as our internal team members.
• We embrace transparency with regular meetings, cascading messages and updates on the growth and success of our organization.

Benefits of Working With Sonar

• Flexible comprehensive employee benefit package.
• We encourage usage of our robust time‑off allocations. You will receive 23 days of PTO per calendar year (on a pro‑rated basis depending on your employment start date), with additional time provided for sickness, life events and holidays.
• We offer an exciting 401(k) plan that has a 4% match, fully vested on day one of participation.
• Fully paid parking in the heart of downtown Austin, Texas.
• Global workforce with employees in 20+ countries representing 35+ unique nationalities.
• We have an annual kick‑off somewhere in the world where we meet to build relationships and goals for the company.
• Monthly catered events, and team events

We Value Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

At Sonar, we believe that our diversity is our strength. We are a global company that values and respects different backgrounds, perspectives, and cultures.

We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute their best. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and welcome all qualified applicants, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

All offers of employment at Sonar are contingent upon the precise results of a comprehensive background check and reference verification conducted before the start date.

We do not currently support visa candidates in the US.

Applications that are submitted through agencies or third party recruiters will not be considered.