Commercial Counsel
At a glance
Mid-level role at Runway. Remote, United States · full-time · $200,000–$270,000 base.
remoteroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Negotiate customer and partner deals, including SaaS and API contracts, data-processing terms, partnerships and vendor agreements
- Build the commercial legal toolkit by refining templates, playbooks, automated review and the legal tech stack
- Give sales teams practical guidance and resources to move deals toward signature
- Study how the products work so your legal advice reflects their technical details
- Track changes in generative AI technology, law and policy that affect your work
What you bring
- A J.D. and active, good-standing admission to at least one state bar
- At least three years negotiating complex technology deals, including one year on B2B SaaS customer contracts at a qualifying SaaS company
- You work with ownership and a bias for action, and look for ways to improve processes and service
Who this fits
This role suits a commercial lawyer comfortable advising on complex technology in a fast-moving, loosely structured setting. You’ll work across sales, partnerships, marketing and the executive team. The position is remote within the United States, with a preference for candidates near New York City or San Francisco.
From the employer
We are building AI to simulate the world through merging art and science.
We believe that world models are at the frontier of progress in artificial intelligence. Language models alone won’t solve the world’s hardest problems – robotics, disease, scientific discovery. Real progress requires models that experience the world and learn from their mistakes, the same way that humans do. And this kind of trial and error can be massively accelerated when done in simulation, rather than in the real world.
World models offer the most clear path to general-purpose simulation, changing how stories are told, how scientific progress is made and how the next frontiers of humanity are reached.
Our team consists of creative, open minded, caring and ambitious people who are determined to change the world. We aspire to continuously build impossible things and our ability to do so relies on building an incredible team. If you are driven to do the same, we'd love to hear from you.
*Titles posted to our careers page are updated regularly to best advertise the role and expected seniority, but internally we have a flat titling system with two types of titles: one for individual contributors and one for people managers.
About the role
*Preferable to have someone near one of our offices in NYC or San Francisco, but open to hiring around the US for the right candidate.
Join the frontier of shaping generative AI video and its legal landscape as an early lawyer at Runway. We are looking to hire a Commercial Counsel who has a strong background in B2B SaaS customer negotiations. Other nice-to-have experience includes: legal operations, privacy, and strategic IP-heavy partnerships, and product counseling. You are a self-starter who thrives at getting things done in fast-paced, unstructured environments. You have a passion for helping companies build and bringing scalable initiatives across our commercial and other legal workstreams.
While the role is in large part focused on the commercial legal function, you might also bring to the table generalist experience across domains such as data privacy, vendor negotiations, and compliance. You will serve as a strategic thought partner to cross-functional teams from sales to partnerships to marketing and to the Runway Executive Team. Comfort working within a highly technical, rapidly evolving area of the law is a must.
What you’ll do
Lead negotiations with Runway’s customers and strategic partners. These include B2B SaaS customer contracts for our generative AI SaaS platform and APIs, DPAs, partnership agreements, and vendor agreements.
Implement commercial processes, tools, and infrastructure to help us scale, including improving templates, playbooks, contract review automation, and our legal tech stack
Empower the sales team with tools and knowledge to close deals quickly
Dive into the technical aspects of our generative AI products to learn them inside and out, to inform your advice to the business
Closely follow technical, legal, and policy developments in the generative AI space
What you’ll need
A J.D. and admission in good standing with at least one state bar
3+ years of negotiating complex technology transactions, including 1+ years negotiating B2B SAAS customer contracts on a commercial legal team at a fast-paced late stage private or mid-sized public B2B SaaS company
In addition to B2B SaaS customer contract negotiations, experience with data privacy, legal operations, strategic IP-heavy partnerships and preferably B2C legal issues are nice-to-have
Bias for action and a willingness to take ownership
Growth mindset that prioritizes continuous operational improvement and service excellence
Experience with scaling business processes globally and operating in environments that have achieved significant scale
Excitement about generative AI and motivation to continuously learn more about the legal landscape governing a new and exciting industry
Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide.
There are many factors that go into salary determinations, including relevant experience, skill level and qualifications assessed during the interview process, and maintaining internal equity with peers on the team. The range shared below is a general expectation for the function as posted, but we are also open to considering candidates who may be more or less experienced than outlined in the job description. In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range.
Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates.
Working at Runway
Great things come from great teams. We’d love to hear from you.
We’re committed to creating a space where our employees can bring their full selves to work and have equal opportunity to succeed. So regardless of race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, origin, ability, age, veteran status, if joining this mission speaks to you, we encourage you to apply.
More about Runway
We're excited to be recognized as a best place to work:
Crain's | InHerSight | BuiltIn NYC | INC
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