Director, Legal

Job Summary

NetApp, a multi-billion dollar technology leader and highly sought-after employer, is adding a Director, Product Legal, to join its award-winning legal department. The successful candidate will support the company’s product legal functions, partnering with engineering, product management, and other business teams on all phases of the product development life cycle. This attorney will work closely with the Company’s technical and business organizations. In this role, you will need excellent judgment, with the interest and ability to understand NetApp’s products and business. This position is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, but will also consider other locations.

This attorney will have 12-15 or more years of experience in advising and supporting product teams, drafting inbound technology, software licenses, and other agreements.

Responsibilities

• Partner with product teams on all phases of the product development life cycle--conception, design, MVP definition, roadmap, commercial release, support, and end-of-life. 
• Embedded within the product organization to help ensure legal compliance and other requirements. 
• Partner closely with Product Management teams to provide pragmatic and actionable advice on a variety of legal and regulatory topics, including open source, privacy by design, data inventory and flow, intellectual property protection, product and data security (such as Executive Order).
• Help build and participate in scalable and effective processes for legal review and launch of new products.
• Work 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, API or specification licenses), terms of use, and product policies. 
• Assist Product Management and Finance on revenue recognition, COGS, and other financial issues (e.g., software, hardware, recurring services/SAAS, leases, etc.).  Partner with others on updates of templates, processes, playbooks as business models evolve.
• Identify interdependencies to help alignment/approvals among stakeholders from various business, technical, and legal groups.  Ability to help find solutions that balance between enabling the business and managing its associated risks.
• Strong background in advising, structuring, drafting, and negotiating technology transactions, including partner agreements, OEM relationships, inbound technology licenses, joint development, collaboration, joint solutions, strategic alliances, software-as-a-service, technology acquisitions, and professional/hosted services.
• Work with Product Management and other legal teams to develop legal framework for supporting planned and unplanned feature and product deprecation and obsolescence.
• Drive consistency of terms flowing from upstream licensors to downstream customers.  For example, establish response plans for epidemic failures and product recalls, and propagate through both customer and vendor agreements.
• Assist privacy legal team, Engineering, Sales, and Finance to evaluate opportunities for data usage centered around products and services, and optimize data rights for use by NetApp.
• Assist 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.

Qualifications Required

• 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, with a growth mindset.
• Flexibility in working hours in a global enterprise.
• Strategic thinker, but can also be detail-oriented, ability to simultaneously manage multiple projects, strong project management and organizational skills, work well under pressure and deadlines.
• Excellent team player and interpersonal skills.
• Strong personal communication skills, both written and oral. 
• Commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally.