Job Description
About SodaAt Soda, we’re on a mission to bring everyone closer to the data. We believe that all stakeholders in the data (and we think that’s everyone) should be able to understand it, trust it, and stay on top of it. We are pioneering the fastest-growing category in the data and analytics space, known as data observability. We allow teams to discover, prioritize, and collaboratively resolve data issues. Our integrated platform brings everyone closer to the data, resulting in data products and analytics that everyone can trust.We’re an international team, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium and dispersed globally. We are looking to locate this role in the UK or Western Europe, for proximity to our existing Operations Team.To further strengthen our team, and on the back on significant commercial traction, we are looking for a:Legal CounselWho are we looking for?Someone, probably earlier in their career, who wants to apply formal legal training and experience to a real-world, commercial application. Currently, legal work (mostly customer contracts) is handled by our Head of Operations and an external team - but now is the appropriate moment in our growth journey to bring this capability in-house.As our Legal Counsel, you'll work alongside our Head of Operations and external lawyers to ensure that Soda's interests are protected, but balanced against our commercial ambitions. The scope of work will broadly look like the below:Commercial contracting with prospectsReviewing and redlining commercial contracts from prospective customers (when they want to use their paper)Including internal syncing on:Commercial judgement calls (e.g. clauses capping price increases, payment terms, …) - syncing with sales/financeLiability judgement calls (what kind of liabilities are we willing to accept in the context of this deal) - syncing with the CEO for exceptionsSLA and infosec judgement calls - syncing with head of customer engineering and head of engineeringReviewing redlines by prospective customers on our standard MSAParticipate in calls with prospects, walking through redlines and negotiating compromise language with their legal counselReviewing NDAsWorking with external counsel for any specialty areas we can’t take on ourselves (e.g. specific regulation for customers in heavily regulated industries)Set up the docusign envelopes, make sure they are routed to the right peopleMake sure our standard MSA, NDA and online T&Cs are kept up to date, in line with any changes in the product, our pricing or our GTM strategyAmendments with existing customersDraft amendments to existing contracts where necessaryChanges in pricing modelChanges due to new features requiring additional legal coverage (e.g. AI features with third parties)OtherReview contracts with partners (lead gen, implementation partners, resellers)Review contracts with suppliersManage the process of granting stock options (including preparing the draft legal documentation), and of executing stock options (ditto)Review employment contractsMaintain our legal folder, make sure all contracts are stored properly and we can find them again when requiredCharacteristicsStrong talent at understanding what’s important to the counterparty in a negotiationFormulating a compromise proposal that addresses the underlying concern of the customer but protects Soda’s interest (as opposed to seeing only what they put on paper, rather than their deeper reason for it)Calm, friendly demeanour in customer-facing negotiationsAble to cope with irregular workloads and sudden short deadlines (mostly driven by customers taking long to come back, then needing a redline turned around in one day + end of quarter situations)Strong at structuring and managing a lot of disparate, concurrent tasks - making sure nothing drops off the radarA capacity to manage internal stakeholdersHard requirementsFluency in English equivalent to native speaker (in grammar, vocabulary and writing - accent does not need to pass for British or American)Law degreeSome reasonable level of hands-on legal work (in particular, contract review)