Head of Legal

Prime Intellect•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Prime Intellect is building the open superintelligence stack — from frontier agentic models to the infra that enables anyone to create, train, and deploy them. We aggregate and orchestrate global compute into a single control plane and pair it with the full RL post-training stack: environments, secure sandboxes, verifiable evals, and our async RL trainer. We enable researchers, startups and enterprises to run end-to-end reinforcement learning at frontier scale, adapting models to real tools, workflows, and deployment contexts. We recently raised $15mm in funding (total of $20mm raised) led by Founders Fund, with participation from Menlo Ventures and prominent angels including Andrej Karpathy, Tri Dao, Dylan Patel, Clem Delangue, Emad Mostaque, and many others. Your Role Prime Intellect operates at the commercial center of one of the most consequential markets in technology. We negotiate nine- and ten-figure compute commitments with neoclouds and hyperscalers globally. We sign enterprise contracts with researchers, startups, and Fortune 500s consuming compute at scale. We ship open-source models and infrastructure that shape how the AI ecosystem develops. The legal architecture underneath all of this is a strategic function — not a downstream review process — and the Head of Legal owns it. You will build and own the legal function at Prime Intellect end-to-end: commercial contracts across customers and suppliers, corporate governance, fundraising, IP and open-source strategy, regulatory positioning, and the operational systems that let legal scale alongside the company. You'll partner directly with leadership on the deals, structures, and decisions that define what Prime Intellect can do. This is a builder role. We're at the stage where the legal function is being defined — playbooks, templates, contract management infrastructure, outside counsel relationships, compliance posture. The person who steps into this seat will set the foundations that the company runs on for years.

Requirements

8–12+ years of legal experience, ideally combining 3–5 years at a top tier firm with substantial in-house experience at a high-growth technology company
Strong commercial instincts — you negotiate to enable deals, not just to manage risk. You understand how contract structure shapes business outcomes, and you bring solutions, not just issue lists
Deep experience with commercial contracts at scale — enterprise customer agreements, large vendor or supplier contracts, and the operational infrastructure that supports commercial volume
Familiarity with consumption-based or usage-based business models and the contract structures that support them
Comfortable owning a legal function: setting strategy, managing outside counsel, building infrastructure, and hiring the team
Operates with high judgment under uncertainty — you can make calls quickly when the stakes are real and the playbook doesn't exist
Comfortable engaging directly with senior counterparts at customers, suppliers, investors, and partners
High ownership — you see gaps and build the fix before anyone asks
Comfortable in ambiguity and speed; this company and this market move fast
AI-native in how you work: you use LLMs, automation, and programmatic tools to move faster

Nice To Haves

Direct experience with cloud, infrastructure, or AI/ML company contracts
Familiarity with compute supply contracts, datacenter agreements, or large infrastructure financing structures
Experience with open-source licensing, contributor agreements, and IP strategy in AI/ML contexts
Working knowledge of export controls, AI regulation, or international technology compliance
Prior experience as the first or second legal hire at a high-growth company

Responsibilities

Own the commercial contract function end-to-end: customer MSAs, DPAs, order forms, enterprise agreements, and the playbooks that let the company close deals quickly without compromising on terms
Negotiate and structure compute supply contracts with neoclouds, hyperscalers, and datacenter operators globally — reserved capacity agreements, MSAs, vendor financing arrangements, and the contractual architecture around our largest commitments
Build the contract templates, playbooks, and CLM infrastructure that let the company scale commercial volume without scaling friction proportionally
Partner closely with Sales and the Compute team on deal structuring and negotiation strategy
Own corporate governance: board materials, written consents, equity grants, cap table management, and the governance cadence that scales with the company
Lead legal workstreams on fundraising rounds, including diligence, documentation, and execution
Manage stock administration, equity plan governance, 409A coordination, and equity-related compliance
Build M&A readiness over time — clean cap table, organized contracts, defensible IP positioning, audit-ready documentation
Own Prime Intellect's open-source legal strategy: model weights licensing, contributor agreements, repository governance, and the IP architecture around our research and product output
Build the framework for IP allocation in customer contracts — particularly around model training, fine-tuning, and derivative work
Manage trademark, patent, and broader IP strategy as the company grows
Own Prime Intellect's positioning on the regulatory frameworks shaping AI infrastructure: export controls, AI-specific regulations (EU AI Act, US executive orders), data privacy (GDPR, CCPA), and the compliance regimes our enterprise customers require
Build the compliance posture that supports enterprise sales: SOC 2, security policies, data processing addenda, and the documentation customers expect from a serious infrastructure provider
Partner with the security and engineering teams on compliance program execution
Manage outside counsel relationships and rationalize what's done in-house vs. externally — building the right balance of speed, expertise, and cost
Build the team as the company scales — first hire likely a senior commercial counsel within 6–12 months, then specialized hires as needs emerge
Establish the legal operations infrastructure: CLM, contract templates, playbooks, knowledge management