Senior Legal Counsel

ABOUT PLACER.AI:

Placer.ai is transforming how organizations understand the physical world. Our location analytics platform provides unprecedented visibility into locations, markets, and consumer behavior. Placer empowers thousands of customers—from Fortune 500 companies, to local governments and nonprofits— to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

What sets us apart? We've built the most advanced location intelligence platform in the market while maintaining an uncompromising commitment to privacy, proving that powerful analytics and responsible data practices can coexist.

Our growth reflects the market's demand: we reached $100M in annual recurring revenue within just 6 years of launching, achieved unicorn status with a $1B+ valuation in 2022, and continue to expand rapidly as one of North America's fastest-growing tech companies. We're creating a $100B+ market opportunity, and we're just getting started.

Named one of Forbes America's Best Startup Employers and a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company, we're building a culture where innovation thrives, collaboration is the norm, and every team member contributes to reshaping how the world understands location.

SUMMARY:

Placer.ai is looking for a Senior Legal Counsel to join a lean, high-performing Legal team that is close to the business and directly involved in revenue, product, data and strategic company decisions. Reporting to the GC, this person will focus primarily on complex commercial contracting and data partnerships at the outset, with a broader Legal leadership path over time as the person builds context and trust across the business.

This is a high-ownership role for someone who wants to work on sophisticated commercial, data licensing, privacy, AI, product and strategic partnership issues while helping build the Legal function as the company scales. You’ll lead important negotiations, improve Legal systems, partner closely with business leaders and take on key Legal projects across areas such as corporate governance, employment, equity, disputes, privacy, product counseling and outside counsel management. The right candidate is a self-starter who is comfortable with ambiguity and able to operate independently with sound judgment after ramping into the business.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Initial Commercial Contracting and Data Partnerships Focus 

• Lead complex commercial negotiations, including enterprise customer MSAs, license agreements, government reseller agreements, professional services agreements, vendor agreements and strategic partnership agreements; serve as a senior escalation point for high-value or complex deals
• Own inbound data provider agreements, including data rights, licensing structures and IP issues that are critical to Placer’s product infrastructure
• Collaborate with GTM, Deal Desk, Partnerships, Security, Product and Compliance on deal structuring, escalations and processes; improve playbooks, templates, fallback positions and standards while giving practical risk guidance

Strategic Legal Generalist Work

• Lead or support broader Legal workstreams, including corporate governance, employment and HR matters, equity and compensation, pre-litigation disputes, policy development and outside counsel management

Privacy, AI, & Product Counseling

• Advise on privacy and data protection matters for Placer’s location analytics platform, partnering with Compliance, Product, Security and Engineering on privacy-by-design practices
• Translate privacy, data and AI governance developments into practical business guidance, with support from subject-matter experts and outside counsel where appropriate
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Security and GTM teams on new feature launches, AI-related functionality, data use questions and product risk assessments

Legal Operations & Technology

• Use and help develop AI tools and legal technology to improve the speed, scale and quality of Legal work, including contract review, research and workflow automation
• Identify recurring Legal and business friction points and turn them into scalable workflows

What Success Looks Like

• You help deals move faster while maintaining legal discipline. You are trusted by leadership to manage complex negotiations and sensitive situations independently. 
• You identify recurring issues and build practical systems to solve them. 
• Over time, you become a go-to Legal partner for broader company priorities and help the function scale with the business.

REQUIREMENTS:

You are a commercially minded, legal generalist who can own complex work, build trust quickly and operate with sound judgment in a fast-moving company. You help business teams make decisions, explain risk clearly and find practical paths forward. You bring depth in commercial contracting and technology transactions, but also have the range and curiosity to take on new legal areas as the company scales. You have the judgment to know when to handle a novel matter directly, escalate internally or use outside counsel efficiently. You don’t wait to be told what to do and you quickly take ownership.

• 8+ years of legal experience, including meaningful in-house experience at a technology, SaaS, data, or other high-growth B2B company
• Strong commercial contracting and tech transactions experience, including the ability to lead complex negotiations independently and exercise sound judgment about when to push, compromise, or escalate
• Breadth across legal issues that commonly arise in a scaling tech company, with deep experience in at least one area such as privacy, product counseling, corporate governance, employment, equity or disputes
• Comfortable operating as a senior resource on a lean team and as a strong individual contributor with the judgment, ownership and communication style to grow into broader legal leadership 
• Excellent legal judgment and communication skills. You separate real risk from theoretical risk, distill complex legal issues into clear narratives for any audience and calibrate legal risk against business objectives
• Practical fluency with AI and legal technology, including experience building AI-powered workflows, a mindset that sees AI as a force multiplier and good judgment about where these tools can improve legal work and where human review, escalation or additional controls are needed
• J.D. from an accredited law school; active membership in at least one U.S. state bar in good standing
• This is a fully remote position, but due to the nature and requirements of the role, candidates must be based in the U.S.

WHY JOIN PLACER.AI? 

• Join a rocketship!
• Take a central and critical role at Placer.ai
• Work with, and learn from, top-notch talent
• Competitive salary
• Excellent benefits
• Fully remote

The U.S. annualized pay range for this position is $200,000 - $240,000 USD total On Target Earnings (OTE = base salary + bonus target). Compensation offered within the stated range may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including job-related skills, professional experience, education and licenses (if applicable), work location and compensation market data. 

Base pay is just a part of our total rewards program. Placer provides medical, dental and vision coverage as well as flexible time off, 401K and equity awards for certain roles.

Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

NOTEWORTHY LINKS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PLACER 

• Placer.ai's $100M round C funding (unicorn valuation!)
• See our data in action at The Anchor
• Placer.ai in the news
• Video: About Placer for Commercial Real Estate
• Video Playlist: Placer Solutions for Other Industries

Placer.ai is committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and promoting a safe, healthy working environment for all employees.

Placer.ai is an equal opportunity employer and has a global remote workforce. Placer.ai’s applicants are considered solely based on their qualifications, without regard to an applicant’s disability or need for accommodation. Any Placer.ai applicant who requires reasonable accommodations during the application process should contact Placer.ai’s Human Resources Department to make the need for an accommodation known.