Senior Commercial Counsel

Synthesia; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 158,000 - 193,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Hybrid work (NYC-based)

Medical, Dental & Vision

401k Match

Parental leave

25 days annual leave

Social events

Referral program

New computer + monitor

Job summary

Synthesia, the world’s leading AI video platform, is seeking a Senior Commercial Counsel to support sales, partnerships, and vendor engagements with a focus on service agreements, licenses, DPAs, and NDAs. You’ll advise on IP, privacy, and go-to-market strategies while helping scale the legal function for a fast-growing tech company.

Ideal candidates have 6+ years in commercial transactions, in-house experience in tech, and a strong grounding in AI terms and cloud contracts.

Qualifications

• Completion of a law degree from a U.S. institution and qualified to practice in-house in the U.S.

Responsibilities

• Draft, review, and negotiate commercial agreements for sales, partnerships, software licenses, data processing agreements, and NDAs.
• Provide input on IP, data privacy, data security, licensing, and go-to-market strategy.
• Develop processes, policies, and playbooks to scale the org and improve efficiency.
• Stay current on applicable laws and developments in AI, privacy, and related areas.
• Contribute knowledge in IP, data protection, financial services, healthcare, and AI governance.
• Operate independently and provide practical guidance balancing business goals with risk.

Skills

SaaS licensing

IP licensing

Data privacy

GDPR/CCPA

In-house legal

AI terms

Cloud services contracts

Revenue recognition

SOW/Order Forms

Education

U.S. law degree (J.D.)

Tools

None

Job description

Synthesia is the world’s leading AI video platform for business, used by over 90% of the Fortune 100. Founded in 2017, the company is headquartered in London, with offices and teams across Europe and the US.

As AI continues to shape the way we live and work, Synthesia develops products to enhance visual communication and enterprise skill development, helping people work better and stay at the center of successful organizations.

Following our recent Series E funding round, where we raised $200 million, our valuation stands at $4 billion. Our total funding exceeds $530 million from premier investors including Accel, NVentures (Nvidia's VC arm), Kleiner Perkins, GV, and Evantic Capital, alongside the founders and operators of Stripe, Datadog, Miro, and Webflow.

As a Senior Commercial Counsel at Synthesia, you will work closely with our Sales, Marketing, Finance, Business Operations, and Go-To-Market organizations. Our team is a network of knowledgeable and supportive professionals who work as a unit, bringing bold ideas to the table and providing collaborative problem-solving. This role will report to the Director, Commercial Legal (NYC-based, overseeing commercial legal work for the Americas), and be responsible for various legal-related matters and projects involved with supporting the teams that sell and build our products.

Responsibilities include:

• Drafting, reviewing, and negotiating a variety of commercial agreements to support sales, partnerships, and our purchase of software and services from vendors. Your primary focus will be on our service agreements, software licenses, data processing agreements, and NDAs for our prospective customers. We’ll ask you to draw from the experience you’ve gained from supporting hundreds or thousands of commercial transactions to help define business terms and structure deals in an optimal way;

• Advising on a variety of areas ranging from intellectual property, data privacy, data security, software licensing agreements, and go-to-market strategy;

• Providing input on processes, policies, and playbooks to help scale the organization and make our team more effective and efficient;

• Providing effective advice by staying up-to-date on relevant industry, commercial, open source, IP, privacy, employment, AI, and other laws, regulations, and developments;

• Developing the company’s knowledge in areas of special interest, including intellectual property, data protection, financial services, healthcare, AI governance, and other regulatory matters;

• Operating independently and providing practical, decisive guidance to our business teams that balances business objectives with legal risk, taking into account our company policies, practices and negotiation positions.

You’re a great fit for the role if have the following characteristics:

• Completion of a law degree from an accredited U.S. institution, and qualified to practice law as an in-house U.S. attorney;

• 6+ years of post-qualification experience working on different kinds of commercial transactions (e.g., SaaS, IP licensing, software licensing, product resale, and distribution, working with contractors, outsourcing, facilities, etc.), including with large enterprise companies, companies in regulated industries (e.g., financial services, healthcare, etc.), government, and edu companies;

• Experience working in an in-house legal department in the tech sector; bonus points for an AI company.

• Comfortable negotiating data processing agreements, including a working knowledge of GDPR and CCPA as they relate to commercial contracts;

• Clean and concise drafting of documents, policies, Slack messages, emails, and other communications in a manner that is digestible for non-lawyers;

• Experience negotiating with enterprise customers, including on the customer’s form;

• Understanding of cloud services, technology, and professional services contracts;

• Knowledge of non-legal business processes gained in-house relating to sales operations and revenue recognition (i.e. experience with Order Forms and Statements of Work);

• Experience managing workload on tight timelines with multiple competing demands; and

• Exposure and experience negotiating artificial intelligence terms, including an understanding of AI models, IP ownership of inputs to and output from the models, and the use of training data for building such models.

At Synthesia we expect everyone to...

• Put the Customer First

• Own it & Go Direct

• Be Fast & Experimental

You can read more about this in this public Notion page

In addition to being a part of a great team, working in a fun and innovative environment, we offer:

• A competitive salary + stock options in our fast-growing Series E startup

• Hybrid working environment for NY based employees

• 100% Medical, Dental & Vision

• 401k Plan + company match

• Paid parental leave

• 25 days of annual leave + Public holidays + paid sick leave

• Fun culture with regular socials

• A generous referral scheme

• A brand new computer + monitor

Location: Hybrid: New York City or Austin, Texas.

Compensation: $175,000+ OTE. The final compensation package will be determined based on experience and qualifications.