Commercial Counsel

Terabase Energy•San Francisco, CA

7h•$150,000 - $185,000•Remote

About The Position

At Terabase Energy, we believe that digitalization and automation will drive the next wave of innovation and cost reduction in large scale solar. To fully unlock the potential of this opportunity, Terabase is developing an interconnected software and construction automation platform. We work alongside project developers, owners, and engineering & construction firms to support the design, optimization, and construction of huge solar projects around the world. Our team is a blend of solar-industry veterans and newbies, thought-leaders, dreamers, software, electrical and mechanical engineers, coders, product managers, project managers, and sales and marketing professionals. We are based in Northern California, with several other offices in the United States and around the world. If all of this piques your interest, we’d love to hear from you! Terabase is seeking a versatile, business-minded Commercial Counsel to serve as a key legal partner across our sales, procurement, operations, and product contracting activities. This role will work closely with the VP of Legal to draft, review, negotiate, and manage a wide variety of commercial agreements, including customer agreements, SaaS and software agreements, vendor and procurement agreements, construction-related services agreements, partnership agreements, NDAs, MSAs, SOWs, order forms, and other contract lifecycle matters. This is primarily a commercial legal role, but we are looking for someone who can also help build and maintain the contracting infrastructure that allows a lean legal team to scale. The Commercial Counsel will help drive deals to closure, coordinate internal approvals, support contract intake and routing, improve templates and playbooks, and contribute to the ongoing development of Terabase’s contract lifecycle management processes, including Ironclad workflows and contract data practices. The ideal candidate brings strong commercial contracting judgment, comfort with both technology and construction-related risk, and a practical legal operations mindset. This person should be able to switch fluidly between legal analysis, deal execution, stakeholder coordination, and process improvement without losing sight of business objectives. This role is remote, with infrequent travel (<10%).

Requirements

JD and active license to practice law in the jurisdiction where the candidate resides.
4–6+ years of commercial contracting experience, preferably in-house or in a business-facing commercial legal role.
Strong drafting, redlining, negotiation, and issue-spotting skills across a variety of commercial contracts.
Experience negotiating technology, construction, SaaS, software, services, vendor, customer, or procurement agreements.
Ability to manage multiple contracts and stakeholders at the same time while keeping deals moving.
Strong business judgment and ability to distinguish legal issues from commercial issues.
Clear, practical communication style with the ability to explain risk without over-lawyering.
Comfort with contract lifecycle activities beyond negotiation, including intake, routing, approvals, signature tracking, repository hygiene, and contract status management.
Interest in legal operations, process improvement, and scalable contracting systems.
Ability to work independently in a lean legal function and partner closely with non-lawyer business teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Ironclad or another CLM platform, including workflows, intake forms, templates, metadata, approvals, repository management, or reporting.
Experience with construction, EPC, infrastructure, renewable energy, robotics, hardware, field services, or project-based commercial frameworks.
Familiarity with solar, energy, construction technology, or utility-scale project development.
Experience building or improving contract playbooks, fallback positions, approval matrices, escalation procedures, or clause libraries.
Experience supporting deal desk, sales operations, procurement operations, or legal operations functions.
Comfort preparing internal approval materials, deal summaries, risk memos, or stakeholder-facing contract guidance.
Experience with contract data, reporting, dashboards, or contract lifecycle metrics.
Prior in-house legal experience at a growth-stage technology, energy, construction, or infrastructure company.

Responsibilities

Draft, review, and negotiate a broad range of commercial agreements, including NDAs, MSAs, SOWs, order forms, SaaS agreements, software and technology agreements, vendor agreements, procurement agreements, partner agreements, services agreements, and construction-related agreements.
Support Sales, Supply Chain/Procurement, Operations, Product, Project Management, and other business teams with practical, business-oriented contracting guidance.
Provide construction-aware legal support for EPC-adjacent, subcontractor, field services, robotics deployment, equipment, and project-based commercial arrangements.
Identify, explain, and escalate legal and commercial risks in a clear, practical way that enables business stakeholders to make informed decisions.
Help distinguish legal risk from business risk and support appropriate internal decision-making and approvals.
Coordinate with external counsel for overflow support, specialized subject matter areas, or high-volume periods.
Project manage contracts and deals to closure by driving timelines, coordinating approvals, tracking open issues, and helping unblock negotiations.
Support contract intake, triage, routing, signature coordination, and post-signature handoff activities.
Help maintain organized contract records, contract status tracking, and key contract metadata.
Support contract repository hygiene, reporting, and data integrity to improve visibility into contract obligations, renewal dates, approval status, and deal risk.
Prepare or contribute to internal deal approval materials, including risk summaries, issue lists, and commercial/legal overviews for key stakeholders.
Help administer, improve, and scale Terabase’s Ironclad workflows, including intake forms, approval flows, routing logic, templates, metadata fields, and contract repository practices.
Partner with Legal, Sales Ops, Supply Chain/Procurement, Finance, and other stakeholders to improve contracting workflows and reduce unnecessary friction.
Develop and maintain contracting playbooks, fallback positions, escalation procedures, clause libraries, template repositories, and training materials.
Identify process bottlenecks and recommend practical improvements to intake, approvals, contract routing, signature processes, and contract lifecycle automation.
Support implementation and continuous improvement of contracting policies, including when legal review is required, who approves deviations, and how exceptions are documented.
Help create lightweight dashboards, reports, or tracking tools to monitor contract volume, cycle times, approval status, and recurring negotiation issues.