Sr. In-House Counsel

Tenstorrent; United States; Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 500,000; Full time

Job summary

Tenstorrent is seeking a Senior In-House Counsel to own key legal functions and partner with teams across the organization. You will manage the full contract lifecycle—from intake and drafting through negotiation, execution, and ongoing management—while minimizing legal and compliance risk and serving as a trusted advisor to internal stakeholders, external partners, and vendors.

The role is hybrid or remote and can be based out of Santa Clara, CA; Boston, MA; Toronto, ON; or Austin, TX.

Qualifications

• A JD and active state bar membership.
• 5+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department.
• Experience in technology, semiconductor, hardware, or supplier environments preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end contract lifecycle from intake to negotiation, execution and ongoing management.
• Negotiate high-value strategic transactions while minimizing legal and compliance risk.
• Provide practical legal advice across functions (Leadership, Engineering, Product, Sales, Supply Chain, Finance, Security, IT, People, Operations).
• Develop templates, playbooks, and CLM workflows to scale legal operations.

Skills

Legal experience

Commercial contracting

Data privacy & security

Cross-functional collaboration

Negotiation leadership

Education

Juris Doctor (JD)

Tools

CLM software

MSA/SOW templates

Job description

Tenstorrent is leading the industry on cutting-edge AI technology, revolutionizing performance expectations, ease of use, and cost efficiency. With AI redefining the computing paradigm, solutions must evolve to unify innovations in software models, compilers, platforms, networking, and semiconductors. Our diverse team of technologists have developed a high performance RISC-V CPU from scratch, and share a passion for AI and a deep desire to build the best AI platform possible. We value collaboration, curiosity, and a commitment to solving hard problems. We are growing our team and looking for contributors of all seniorities.

Tenstorrent is hiring a Senior In-House Counsel to own key legal functions and serve as a hands-on partner to teams across the organization. In this role, you will take end-to-end ownership of the areas you support—guiding teams through the entire contract lifecycle, from intake and drafting through negotiation, execution, and ongoing management—while minimizing legal and compliance risk and serving as a trusted advisor to internal stakeholders, external partners, and vendors.

We seek someone who is adaptable, hands-on, and comfortable pivoting in a fast-paced startup environment. You will independently own competing priorities across commercial contracting, data privacy and security, compliance, and broader business matters, building the processes and playbooks that help the business move quickly and confidently.

This role is hybrid or remote and can be based out of Santa Clara, CA, Boston, MA, Toronto, ON or Austin, TX.

We welcome candidates at various experience levels for this role. During the interview process, candidates will be assessed for the appropriate level, and offers will align with that level, which may differ from the one in this posting.

Who You Are

• A practical, solutions-oriented advisor. You balance business priorities with thoughtful risk management and can tell a real risk from a theoretical one, which is what lets you lead end-to-end negotiations on high-value strategic transactions and close impactful deals without leaving the company exposed.
• A commercial contracting generalist. You move comfortably across MSAs, SOWs, software and technology licenses, SaaS and cloud services agreements, NDAs, data processing and AI addenda, marketing arrangements, and vendor/supplier agreements, and you manage them through the full lifecycle rather than handing them off at signature.
• A builder, not just a reviewer. You create the templates, playbooks, fallback positions, and CLM workflows that let Sales, Channel, and Supply Chain scale without a legal bottleneck, and you reach for AI tooling to make legal operations faster and better.
• An owner and a people-first communicator. You carry your work end to end, manage competing priorities independently, pivot quickly as a startup's priorities shift, and communicate with clarity and purpose across every team and level of the organization.
  

What We Need

• Qualifications. A JD and active state bar membership, with 5+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department. Experience in a technology, semiconductor, hardware, chip manufacturing, or supplier environment is strongly preferred.
• General commercial contracting. Experience drafting, structuring, negotiating, executing, and managing complex commercial agreements across the full contract lifecycle (MSAs, SOWs, software and technology licenses, SaaS and cloud services agreements, NDAs, data processing (DPA) and AI addenda, hardware sales, channel partner agreements, marketing arrangements, and vendor/supplier agreements), including the templates, playbooks, and fallback positions that let the business contract at scale.
• Supply chain & manufacturing. Experience drafting and negotiating supply chain and manufacturing agreements, including foundry, manufacturing, procurement, supply, logistics, and third-party logistics (3PL) agreements.
• Data privacy & security. Experience advising on global data protection, privacy, cybersecurity, and cross-border data transfer issues: DPAs, SCCs and transfer mechanisms, security terms, audit rights, breach and incident notification, and permitted data use, under frameworks such as GDPR, CCPA, and APPI.
• Cross-functional partnership. Experience providing practical legal advice across functions (Leadership, Engineering, Product, Sales, Supply Chain, Finance, Security, IT, People, and Operations), with exceptional negotiation and organizational skills.
  

What You Will Learn

• How to help architect the legal foundation for a company building the future of computing and scaling as a global, open-hardware technology company.
• How to advise Leadership, Engineering, Product, and other teams on novel legal, compliance, privacy, and risk issues involving modern semiconductor and AI technology.
• How to draft and negotiate the complex agreements that enable commercial growth and strategic partnerships, from strategic transactions and technology licenses to the hardware, channel, and manufacturing agreements unique to shipping silicon.
• How to design legal infrastructure that scales: templates, playbooks, and policies built for regional and global consistency, and CLM workflows spanning intake, template generation, review and negotiation, approval routing, signature, storage, and post-execution obligation management.
• How to become a trusted legal advisor who gives teams the autonomy to move quickly and confidently.

Compensation for all engineers at Tenstorrent ranges from $100k - $500k including base and variable compensation targets. Experience, skills, education, background and location all impact the actual offer made.

Tenstorrent offers a highly competitive compensation package and benefits, and we are an equal opportunity employer.

This offer of employment is contingent upon the applicant being eligible to access U.S. export-controlled technology. Due to U.S. export laws, including those codified in the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR), the Company is required to ensure compliance with these laws when transferring technology to nationals of certain countries (such as EAR Country Groups D:1, E1, and E2). These requirements apply to persons located in the U.S. and all countries outside the U.S. As the position offered will have direct and/or indirect access to information, systems, or technologies subject to these laws, the offer may be contingent upon your citizenship/permanent residency status or ability to obtain prior license approval from the U.S. Commerce Department or applicable federal agency. If employment is not possible due to U.S. export laws, any offer of employment will be rescinded.