Senior Counsel, Product & Technology

HCLTech; New York (NY); On-site; USD 165,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Disability insurance

401(k) plan

Paid time off

Paid holidays

Job summary

HCLTech seeks an experienced Senior Counsel, Product & Technology to guide legal risk and licensing for our software portfolio. You will partner with engineering, product, and procurement to ensure sound legal footing across architecture, deployment models, and third‑party components.

The role emphasizes deep technical fluency, strong negotiation skills, and a proactive approach to data privacy and regulatory compliance within a global software environment.

Qualifications

• Jurist with focus on software products and licensing.
• Experience negotiating third‑party tech agreements and open‑source terms.
• Ability to translate architecture concepts into enforceable licenses and terms.

Responsibilities

• Advise engineering and product teams on legal implications of product architecture.
• Lead on licensing strategy for AI features, SaaS, PaaS, and on‑prem deployments.
• Oversee vendor negotiations, OSS compliance, and data privacy considerations in licensing.

Skills

Technical fluency

Vendor negotiations

Software licensing

Data privacy awareness

Education

Law degree

Job description

Job Title- Senior Counsel, Product & Technology

Experience- 6-10 Years

Pay Range Minimum: $165,000 per year

Pay Range Maximum: $200,00 per year

A candidate’s pay within the range will depend on their skills, experience, education, and other factors permitted by law. This role may also be eligible for performance-based bonuses subject to company policies. In addition, this role is eligible for the following benefits subject to company policies: medical, dental, vision, pharmacy, life, accidental death & dismemberment, and disability insurance; employee assistance program; 401(k) retirement plan; 10 days of paid time off per year (some positions are eligible for need-based leave with no designated number of leave days per year); and 10 paid holidays per year

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced and technically fluent Product Legal Counsel to join our global legal team, with a primary focus on the technology underpinning HCL Software's product portfolio. This role provides legal guidance across software product development, licensing, and the third-party technology dependencies that sit behind our products - working closely with engineering, product, and procurement teams to ensure our products are built, licensed, and sourced on a sound legal footing.

Some familiarity with multi-channel distribution (direct sales, partners, marketplaces) is useful context, but is not the emphasis of this role. The priority is genuine technical understanding: how our products are architected, what they’re built on, what we license in, and how we license out.

Key Responsibilities

Technology & Product Architecture Fluency

• Develop and maintain a working understanding of HCL Software's product architecture and technology stack sufficient to advise engineering and product teams on legal implications of technical design choices.
• Partner directly with engineering and product organizations to stay current on product roadmaps, technical dependencies, and emerging technology trends (e.g., AI/ML components embedded in products).
• Translate technical architecture and integration decisions into legal risk assessments that are specific and actionable, not generic.

Third-Party Technology Procurement & Vendor Dependency Management

• Support the review and negotiation of agreements with third-party technology vendors and embedded/open-source content providers whose components sit behind HCL Software's products.
• Advise procurement and engineering stakeholders on legal requirements for onboarding new third-party technology dependencies, including open-source components, before they are integrated into shipped products.
• Support development of a streamlined intake and review process for smaller technology vendor agreements, integrating them into standard procurement and release-management workflows.

Software Licensing Strategy & Drafting

• Own and maintain license templates and terms of use across the full product range, ensuring consistency and legal soundness at high volume.
• Lead on emerging licensing issues, including terms for AI-embedded functionality (e.g., IP indemnification positions for AI-generated output, data processing terms) and evolving deployment models (SaaS, PaaS, on-prem, hybrid).
• Advise on open-source software usage and compliance across the product portfolio, minimizing associated legal risk.
• Track and document approved positions on new licensing trends in a form the wider team can apply consistently.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Risk Management

• Work closely with product, engineering, data privacy, and security teams to embed data protection and security requirements into product licenses and terms of use, and to support release-management processes.
• Identify and mitigate legal risks arising from third-party integrations, technology dependencies, and platform-specific technical requirements.
• Support internal policy development and training on software licensing, third-party technology procurement, and open-source compliance.
• Assist with software-specific disputes, license compliance questions, and contractual disagreements involving technology vendors or licensees, as needed.

Multi-Channel & Regulatory Awareness (Secondary)

• Maintain general awareness of legal requirements across the company's sales channels (direct, partner, marketplace) sufficient to flag issues, without primary ownership of channel-specific negotiation or strategy.
• Support compliance with relevant data privacy (GDPR, CCPA), export control, and technology-sector regulatory requirements as they intersect with product licensing and third-party technology sourcing.

Qualifications

Required

• Law degree from an accredited law school; admission to practice law in a relevant US jurisdiction.
• 10+ years of legal experience, with a demonstrated focus on the technical side of software products, not solely commercial/sales-facing product counsel work.
• Genuine technical fluency: comfort in reading technical architecture or integration documentation, and engaging directly and credibly with engineering teams on how products are built.
• Substantive experience negotiating agreements with third-party technology vendors including integration terms, component licensing, data processing, and dependency risk, not just standard commercial contracts.
• Strong understanding of software licensing models (SaaS, PaaS, on-prem/hybrid), open-source software compliance, and product lifecycle management.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts for legal audiences and legal concepts for technical audiences.

Preferred / Advantageous

• Prior experience in-house at a technology or SaaS company, ideally in a role embedded with or adjacent to engineering, product, or technology procurement functions (rather than a purely sales-facing legal seat).
• Candidates from adjacent backgrounds are welcomed and encouraged to apply- e.g., IT/technology vendor management legal, or technology transactions role, where the profile brings strong technical fluency even without a "product counsel" title.
• Familiarity with emerging AI and other regulation and licensing practice (e.g., EU AI Act, NIST2, CRA, DORA etc.) as it applies to OEM software products.
• Working knowledge of IP, copyright, trademark, and patent protection as applied to software products.
• Experience with global software distribution and regional regulatory compliance (EU, APAC, LATAM) is a plus but not required given the technical focus of this role.
• Familiarity with agile product development processes in a technology setting.

If you want to know more about HCL Technologies, please visit http://www.hcltech.com.