Senior Contracts Manager

FTS, Inc.; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Our client in the SaaS sector seeks a Senior Commercial Contracts Manager to lead and continuously improve its commercial contracting function. You will partner with Sales, Product, Customer Success, Engineering, Finance, and Information Security to ensure commercial agreements reflect products, implementation approaches, and support obligations.

You will negotiate SOWs, MSAs, SaaS contracts, technology licenses, and complex deals with enterprise customers, using modern tools to speed and

Qualifications

• 8+ years in commercial contracting or related field with progressively increasing responsibility for complex commercial negotiations.
• Proven success negotiating Statements of Work, Master Services Agreements, SaaS agreements, technology licensing agreements or similar contracts.
• Strong commercial judgment and ability to assess risk, negotiate practical solutions, and know when to involve outside counsel.
• Experience with enterprise customers, procurement, legal, executive stakeholders, and outside counsel.
• Excellent written communication, organizational, negotiation, and relationship-management skills.
• Ability to manage multiple complex negotiations and competing priorities.

Responsibilities

• Draft, negotiate, and execute customer Statements of Work using modern technology and contracting best practices.
• Develop and maintain expert knowledge of MSAs, SLAs, SOWs, contract templates, and relevant standards.
• Translate complex pricing structures and commitments into clear contractual obligations.
• Lead contract discussions with customer business, procurement, and legal teams.
• Identify contractual risks, recommend practical solutions, and align agreements with products and implementation.
• Maintain consistency across customer commitments while supporting flexibility for strategic opportunities.
• Serve as liaison with outside legal counsel on commercial contracting matters.
• Independently manage commercial negotiations, engaging counsel for complex issues.
• Apply legal guidance to templates, playbooks, and contracting standards.
• Vendor management of strategic tech vendor agreements including cloud, software, workflow, and data-platform providers.

Skills

Negotiation

Contract Management

SaaS

Stakeholder Management

Legal coordination

Vendor management

Tools

AI-enabled contracting tools

Job description

Our client is a growing SaaS technology company that develops modern software solutions for banks, credit unions, and fintech lenders. Its platform helps financial institutions improve collections, recovery, compliance, data management, decisioning, and operational workflows.

As the company continues to scale, commercial contracting has become an increasingly strategic function requiring sound business judgment, contract expertise, and strong cross-functional collaboration.

Position Overview

The company is seeking a Senior Commercial Contracts Manager to lead and continuously improve its commercial contracting function. This individual will serve as the primary business partner for customer and strategic vendor agreements across the organization.

This is not a contract administration role. The Senior Commercial Contracts Manager will work at the intersection of Business Development, Product, Customer Success, Engineering, Finance, Information Security, outside legal counsel, and enterprise customers to ensure commercial agreements accurately reflect the company’s products, services, implementation approach, and support obligations.

The successful candidate will also be comfortable adopting modern technologies, including AI-enabled and agentic tools, to improve contracting speed, quality, and consistency. Given the evolving technology landscape and the highly regulated customer base, this role requires particular diligence regarding customer security requirements, data-handling obligations, and contractual restrictions.

Responsibilities

Contract Management

• Partner with Sales to efficiently draft, negotiate, and execute customer Statements of Work using modern technology, AI-enabled tools, and contracting best practices.
• Develop and maintain expert knowledge of the company’s MSAs, SLAs, SOWs, contract templates, and relevant commercial standards.
• Translate complex pricing structures, volume commitments, and creative commercial arrangements into clear and accurate contractual obligations.
• Lead contract discussions with customer business, procurement, and legal teams.
• Identify contractual risks, recommend practical solutions, and ensure agreements align with the company’s products, implementation approach, operational capabilities, and business objectives.
• Maintain consistency across customer commitments while supporting appropriate flexibility for strategic opportunities.
• Serve as the company’s primary liaison with outside legal counsel on commercial contracting matters.
• Independently manage commercial negotiations, engaging counsel when appropriate on complex legal, regulatory, intellectual property, data privacy, product liability, and data-handling issues.
• Apply legal guidance to the company’s templates, negotiation playbooks, fallback positions, and contracting standards.
• Vendor Management - manage strategic technology vendor agreements, including contracts with cloud infrastructure, software, workflow, and data-platform providers.
• Partner with internal stakeholders to evaluate vendor risks and ensure contractual terms support the company’s operational and security requirements.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner closely with Business Development, Product, Customer Success, Engineering, Finance, and Information Security throughout the sales, contracting, and implementation lifecycle.
• Serve as the organization’s internal subject-matter expert on commercial contracting.
• Continuously improve contract templates, negotiation playbooks, approval workflows, and contracting processes.
• Support scalable contracting practices as the company’s customer base, product offerings, and vendor relationships expand.

What's Required:

• 8+ years of experience in commercial contracting, contract management, legal operations, SaaS commercial operations, procurement, or a related field, with progressively increasing responsibility for complex commercial negotiations.
• Demonstrated success negotiating Statements of Work, Master Services Agreements, SaaS agreements, technology licensing agreements, or similar complex commercial contracts.
• Strong commercial judgment and the ability to independently assess contractual risk, negotiate practical business solutions, and determine when outside legal counsel should be engaged.
• Experience working directly with enterprise customers, procurement organizations, legal departments, executive stakeholders, and outside counsel.
• Excellent written communication, organizational, negotiation, and relationship-management skills.
• Ability to manage multiple complex negotiations and competing priorities simultaneously.
• Exceptional attention to detail and the ability to translate business and operational requirements into precise contractual language.

Plus

• Experience working in a sales-oriented environment, ideally within SaaS, enterprise software, fintech, or another technology-driven company.
• Experience managing technology vendor agreements and cloud-service contracts.
• Familiarity with financial services or another highly regulated industry.
• Experience developing contract templates, negotiation playbooks, approval frameworks, or contract lifecycle management processes.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled contracting tools or an interest in adopting emerging technologies to improve legal and commercial workflows.
• Legal studies, paralegal experience, or formal contract-related education is helpful but not required.