Director, Legal

Overview

This role supports the organization’s Product Legal functions, partnering with engineering, product management, and other business teams across all phases of the product development life cycle. The attorney will work closely with both technical and business organizations, providing pragmatic legal guidance grounded in strong product and business understanding.

This position is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and other locations may be considered.

Responsibilities

• Partner with product teams across the product development life cycle, including conception, design, MVP definition, roadmap, commercial release, support, and end-of-life.
• Work embedded within the product organization to help ensure legal compliance and other product requirements.
• Partner with Product Management on legal and regulatory topics, including open source, privacy by design, data inventory and flow, intellectual property protection, and product/data security (including support for Executive Order-related requirements).
• Build and participate in scalable legal review and launch processes for new products.
• Collaborate with Product Management, Finance, other legal teams, and stakeholders to structure and draft product-specific terms to be incorporated into standard commercial templates; draft custom templates (such as SDK licenses and API or specification licenses), terms of use, and product policies.
• Support Product Management and Finance on revenue recognition, COGS, and other financial issues (including software, hardware, recurring services/SaaS, leases, and related matters); partner on updates to templates, processes, and playbooks as business models evolve.
• Identify interdependencies to support alignment and approvals among stakeholders across business, technical, and legal groups; balance enabling the business with managing associated risks.
• Provide strong counsel on technology transactions, including partner agreements, OEM relationships, inbound technology licenses, joint development and collaboration, joint solutions, strategic alliances, software-as-a-service, technology acquisitions, and professional/hosted services.
• Develop legal frameworks for supporting planned and unplanned feature and product deprecation and obsolescence.
• Drive consistency of terms from upstream licensors to downstream customers, including establishing response plans for epidemic failures and product recalls and propagating requirements through customer and vendor agreements.
• Assist privacy legal, engineering, sales, and finance in evaluating product- and service-centered data usage opportunities and optimizing data rights for use by the organization.
• Work with the IP group to identify offensive and defensive patent gaps and opportunities from a product perspective.
• Maintain end-to-end bill of materials for each product/service.

Requirements

• JD and membership in good standing of at least one state bar in the US.
• 12–15 or more years of legal experience in a major law firm or in-house legal department supporting product-related legal issues and technology transactions/licenses.
• 5 or more years of people management experience.
• Strong work ethic and self-starter mindset with a growth mindset.
• Flexibility in working hours in a global enterprise.
• Strategic thinker with strong attention to detail; ability to simultaneously manage multiple projects with strong project management and organizational skills; able to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
• Excellent team collaboration and interpersonal skills.
• Strong communication skills (written and oral).
• Commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally.

Compensation & Benefits

• Target salary range: $227,800 - $338,800 USD.
• The salary offered will be determined by the candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range.
• Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards and include a comprehensive benefits package.
• Benefits may cover health insurance, life insurance, retirement or pension plans, paid time off, various leave options, performance-based incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSUs), subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies.
• Benefits may vary by country and region; additional details will be provided during the recruitment process.

Location

• Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
• Other locations may be considered.