Senior Legal Counsel - Commercial in London

About OLIXAI is growing faster than any technology in history and the explosion in demand has created a massive infrastructure gap; we can no longer build chips or power stations fast enough to keep up. The industry is still leaning on a ten-year-old hardware blueprint that has reached its limit. A new paradigm that is faster and more efficient will be the biggest economic opportunity of the next century and create the most important company of the next decade.

The OLIX Decode Accelerator 1 (DX-1) is the first accelerator architected specifically for decode. Rack-scale co-design of logic, data movement, packaging, optics and interconnect enables a step change in system level performance.

The Role: We are hiring our first Senior Legal Counsel (Commercial) to own commercial contracting end to end. Reporting to the Director of Legal, you will lead negotiations with customers, suppliers, and partners, set OLIX's positions on commercial risk, and build the playbooks that let the business move at pace. This is a high‑autonomy role for a lawyer who wants to own a function, work closely with engineers and commercial leaders, and take a contracting practice from zero to scale.

Responsibilities:

• Lead drafting, review, and negotiation of commercial contracts across customers, suppliers, partners, and resellers.
• Own the contracting lifecycle from intake and triage through to execution and post‑signature management.
• Build and maintain playbooks, standard terms, fallback positions, and templates for use by the business.
• Design and build scalable legal workflows, using AI tooling and automation to drive down cycle times, reduce manual review, and let the legal function scale faster than headcount.
• Integrate AI into day‑to‑day contracting: triage, first‑pass review, redline generation, clause extraction, precedent search, and playbook enforcement.
• Set OLIX's position on key commercial terms including liability caps, indemnities, IP ownership and licensing, data protection, warranties, termination, and service levels.
• Partner closely with Sales, Procurement, Operations, and Engineering to understand deal context and reach commercially sensible outcomes.
• Advise on day‑to‑day commercial legal questions from across the business.
• Manage external counsel for specialist workstreams.
• Contribute to legal tooling selection, CLM implementation, and internal enablement.

Skills & Experience:

• Qualified solicitor in England and Wales (or equivalent) with 6 to 8 years PQE.
• Trained at a top‑tier City or international firm.
• Demonstrable track record leading commercial contract negotiations end to end.
• Strong technical drafting skills and a structured approach to playbooks and standard forms.
• AI‑native approach to legal work. You actively use AI tools in your day‑to‑day practice, have strong instincts for what AI does well and where it fails, and treat AI fluency as a core craft skill rather than a novelty.
• Bias toward building scalable systems over doing work manually. You look for the automation, template, or workflow that solves the problem ten times, not just once.
• Commercially pragmatic, able to move at pace, and comfortable owning positions without constant supervision.
• Direct, plain‑language communicator.

Nice to have:

• Experience in a technology company, ideally B2B hardware or infrastructure.
• Exposure to semiconductor, manufacturing, or deep‑tech industries.
• Familiarity with enterprise or cloud customer contracting.
• Understanding of IP licensing, export controls, and data protection as they arise in commercial contracts.
• Experience implementing or selecting CLM or legal AI tooling (Ironclad, Harvey, Spellbook, Robin, Eve, etc.).
• Light coding or low‑code fluency (Python, SQL, Zapier, n8n, or similar) for building internal workflows.

Compensation & Equity:

• Competitive Salary: £120,000+, commensurate with your experience, skills, and location.
• Equity & Ownership: Meaningful stock options. You’re not just joining the mission; you’re owning a piece of it.
• Proximity Bonus: We value your time. To minimise your commute and maximise your life, we offer a £24k annual Living‑Local Bonus if your residence is within 20 minutes of the office.

Health & Wellbeing:

• Premium Healthcare: Comprehensive BUPA medical and dental cover, including Medical History Disregarded (MHD), for complete peace of mind.
• Time Off: 25 days of annual leave, plus all UK public holidays.