Startup Lawyer

YourGeneralCounsel; Santa Clara (CA); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Equal opportunity employer

Job summary

Tenstorrent is seeking a highly capable attorney with strong experience in technology transactions who can advise on a broad range of legal issues. The role requires a JD, active bar admission, and 7+ years in law firms or inhouse legal departments.

You will partner with product, sales, procurement, and engineering teams to shape strategy, manage risk, and enable rapid, compliant growth in a fast‑paced, startup environment. The position is hybrid from Santa Clara, CA.

Qualifications

• Juris Doctor degree and active bar membership in at least one state.
• Experience advising on a broad range of legal issues including IP, sales, M&A, trademarks, procurement, recruitment, and standards participation.
• Interest in learning about complex technologies and building scalable legal processes.

Responsibilities

• Advise Tenstorrent on a broad set of legal matters including IP, sales, marketing, and procurement.
• Support transactions, negotiations, and regulatory compliance across the business.
• Build processes and collaborate with cross‑functional teams to enable fast, compliant growth.

Skills

Technology transactions

Communication

Team collaboration

Education

Juris Doctor

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.

Tenstorrent is looking for a "smarter than the average bear" expert in their field prepared to make decisions, write, build processes, and fully engage our non-legal partners to grow our business together. In this role, you will usher in the growth phase of Tenstorrent against the backdrop of the highly-regulated, evolving-by-the-day, and "in the spotlight" AI industry.

The ideal candidate is seeking out the challenge of a fast-paced startup, is curious to learn about (arguably) the most complicated product on the planet, and brings some fun with their hard work.

This role is hybrid, based out of Santa Clara, CA.

Who You Are

• Technology and business curious: someone who wants to learn how our products and industry work.
• A figure-it-outer.
• An expert (or willingness to step up and become an expert) in technology transactions.
• A clear communicator.
• Someone others want to have on their team.

What We Need

• A Juris Doctor degree, active membership in at least one state bar, and 7+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department.
• Experience sufficient to comfortably dive in to advise on a very broad range of legal issues in areas such as intellectual property, sales, marketing, patent portfolio management, trademarks, standards participation, business development, M&A, recruiting, and procurement.
• Demonstrated interest in learning about complicated things.
• Demonstrated interest to build processes that improve a growing business.
• A point of view and willingness to engage others' points of view.

What You Will Learn

• Whatever you want: Tenstorrent's culture supports a "try and fail" approach over a "stay the course" approach.
• How legal teams partner with Finance, Procurement, Sales, Security, IT, People, Engineering, and Operations across a global organization.
• 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.