Contracts Manager/Senior Contracts Manager

Overview

This role is the organization’s first in-house contracts professional, partnering closely with the Legal team and working across functions to negotiate and manage agreements end to end. Responsibilities include drafting, redlining, negotiating directly with counterparties, obtaining approvals, ensuring signature and proper filing, and maintaining contract systems and playbooks.

This position is fully remote and based in the United States.

Responsibilities

• Draft, redline, and negotiate agreements directly with counterparties, including:
  • CDAs, consulting agreements, MSAs and SOWs
  • Vendor and CRO agreements
  • Clinical trial agreements
  • CMC and supply agreements
  • MTAs
  • Other agreements as they arise
• Apply contract playbooks with judgment by:
  • Holding firm on intellectual property, confidentiality, data, and other high-risk/high-value terms
  • Resolving lower-stakes issues efficiently
  • Escalating to the General Counsel when a position warrants it
• Move agreements to signature quickly by owning the timeline for each agreement, keeping internal requesters informed, and reducing friction that slows contract completion
• Serve as the front door for contracts by triaging requests, progressing what you can, and routing remaining items appropriately
• Build and maintain contract playbooks, including:
  • Positions and fallbacks by agreement type
  • Who reviews/approves what and when matters should go to the General Counsel or outside counsel
• Route approvals (including Finance), manage signature logistics, file executed agreements with correct metadata, and track renewals, expirations, and obligations
• Own the contract repository so executed agreements in the system are organized, complete, and accessible to the right stakeholders
• Administer the contract lifecycle management system (Ironclad), including:
  • Workflows, templates, metadata, permissions, and user training
  • Ongoing improvements to make it easy for employees to find what they need
• Rebuild and improve the contracting process so requesters know exactly what to do
  • Learn an AI-assisted intake tool, test it, and tune it until it works
• Maintain the template library and update templates and playbooks to reflect best practices
• Coordinate outside counsel and a consultant bench on specialist questions
• Use and improve AI tools supporting contract work, and propose process improvements
• As contract volume allows, support legal operations tasks such as:
  • Vendor review
  • Employee training on contracting
  • Process improvement

Requirements

• 5+ years negotiating and managing contracts at a biotech or pharmaceutical company, or at a law firm or CRO serving them, with most of your career in life sciences
• Direct, hands-on experience negotiating standard biotech agreement sets with counterparties (not primarily routing documents)
• Practical judgment, including a demonstrated ability to:
  • Close agreements quickly
  • Protect terms that matter most
  • Resolve lower-stakes issues without unnecessary back-and-forth
• Experience administering a contract lifecycle management system (not just using one)
• Proven ownership of the administrative side of contracting (signatures, filing, tracking) with strong organizational discipline and a service mindset
• Active, current use of AI tools in your work and an appetite to go deeper

Preferred Qualifications

• Ironclad Signature or Docusign experience
• Public-company experience
• Experience building playbooks and/or a template library or leading a CLM implementation
• Exposure to clinical operations contracting
• Broader legal operations experience
• A paralegal certificate or law degree (welcome but not required)

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation Range

• $118,000 - $160,000 (actual compensation may vary based on experience, qualifications and location)

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity
• 100% remote work and flexible schedule
• Health, dental, and vision for you and your dependents
• Flexible time off
• Generous parental leave
• Traditional and Roth 401k

Location

• Remote (U.S.)

Employment Conditions

All offers of employment are contingent upon satisfactory completion of a background check and verification of eligibility to work in the United States.