Contracts Manager, EMEA in London

About the company: the company’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.

About the role: the company is seeking a Contracts Manager to join our team in London. Embedded within our in-region commercial and legal operations, you'll work closely with local in-region counsel and lead counsel to support commercial and technology transactions across the region. We'll rely on you to help review, draft, and negotiate commercial and procurement contracts that support our cutting-edge AI systems. You'll also serve as a key partner in translating global legal strategy into regional execution — including supporting the triage of regional matters, rolling out process improvements and initiatives driven from global headquarters, and running local enablement sessions to keep business teams informed and aligned. You'll build scalable contracting processes and collaborate across Product, Sales, Finance, Business Operations, Research, and Procurement teams.

Key responsibilities:

• Draft, analyze, negotiate, and complete complex commercial transactions with our enterprise customers, vendors, and strategic partners, including IP licensing agreements.
• Propose and develop scalable solutions to improve contracting efficiency.
• Collaborate with business units and legal team members to streamline contract management processes, identify potential risks, and drive continuous improvement in contract handling efficiency.
• Collaborate with the Product, Sales, Business Operations, Research, and Procurement teams to achieve key business objectives and deliver strategic, business-minded, and solutions-focused counsel.
• Partner closely with in-region counsel and lead counsel on day-to-day triage of regional legal matters, ensuring workload is prioritized effectively and seamlessly coordinated between regional and global teams.
• Drive the regional rollout of process improvements, policy updates, and programs initiated from global headquarters, including planning and facilitating local enablement sessions to keep commercial and cross-functional stakeholders informed and ready to execute.
• Pitch in across other areas of the legal function — as a small team supporting big things, each of us practices across multiple areas, and we'd love to hear where else your experience or interests could contribute.

Minimum qualifications:

• Substantive knowledge of software and SaaS agreements, reseller agreements, services agreements, strategic partnerships, and general commercial contract terms.
• Ability to independently draft, review, and negotiate complex commercial and procurement contracts.
• Experience managing the full contract lifecycle for technology transactions, sales organizations, and/or partnerships.

Preferred qualifications:

• 8+ years of related contract management experience, with at least 5 years supporting technology transactions, sales organizations, and/or partnerships.
• Experience operating in a fast-paced technology startup where priorities shift rapidly and schedules 'move to the left'.
• Prior experience as part of a global or distributed legal team, including partnering with colleagues across regions and navigating the nuances of aligning local needs with centralized priorities.
• A track record of operating with a high degree of autonomy while keeping global stakeholders appropriately informed — comfortable setting your own cadence and exercising sound judgment about when to elevate versus when to decide.
• Strong habits around async communication, proactive status updates, and operating effectively with a remote manager across time zones.
• An understanding of what's important in the context of a contract and the organization's mission, including when to be flexible and when to draw a hard line.
• A knack for identifying and implementing efficient processes and policies.
• A preference for straightforward, concise explanations over legalese and overwrought drafting.
• Comfort operating outside your areas of expertise and in uncharted legal territory.
• The ability to thrive as a member of cross-functional teams building frontier technologies, with a desire to develop a deep understanding of our technical teams and what we are building.
• Excellent verbal and written communication, analytical, collaboration, and interpersonal skills.
• Authentic integrity and a deep understanding of the importance of ethics in business.

The annual compensation range for this role is listed below. For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ('OTE') range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role. Annual Salary: £140,000—£180,000 GBP.

Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience in a field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience. Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position.

Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices. We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.

Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed. Research shows that people who identify as being from underrepresented groups are more prone to experiencing imposter syndrome and doubting the strength of their candidacy, so we urge you not to exclude yourself prematurely and to submit an application if you're interested in this work. We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.