Head of Legal

TypeSafe AI•San Francisco, CA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

TypeSafe AI is an AI lab building machine-native intelligence infrastructure for automation. The company recently launched its first public model, Jev, and reports that around one-third of the Fortune 500 are users. The team includes people from OpenAI, Google Brain, and Meta/FAIR, and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. The Head of Legal will be TypeSafe’s first legal hire, building and leading the legal function as the company grows. The role works directly with founders and across engineering, product, and go-to-market to support product launches and relationships with customers, partners, and vendors, while helping the company make thoughtful decisions about risk. The core foundation is commercial work, product counseling, and privacy, with ownership of the broader legal agenda. The role is hands-on and requires substantial judgment, ownership, pragmatism, and clear recommendations that help the team move forward quickly. The position is fully in person at TypeSafe’s San Francisco office near Embarcadero station. The company emphasizes craftsmanship, thoughtful collaboration, kindness, and meaningful contribution, and offers room to shape how legal supports the business and its technology.

Requirements

At least 10–15 years of relevant legal experience, including meaningful in-house experience at a growing technology company.
Strong legal training; experience at a leading law firm is ideal.
A track record of applying legal training effectively inside a business.
Substantial commercial contracting experience.
Ability to counsel independently on product and privacy matters, with sound judgment about the limits of one’s expertise.
Experience helping a company scale its legal operations and building processes suited to the company’s stage.
Curiosity about AI and willingness to learn how the technology works, how customers use it, and where legal questions arise.
Ability to make practical decisions under uncertainty, distinguish material risks from manageable ones, and consider operational and commercial solutions alongside contractual protections.
Enjoyment of hands-on work, responsiveness, and follow-through in a fast-moving environment.
Clear communication and ability to build productive relationships with technical teams, customers, executives, investors, and outside counsel.
Ability to prioritize limited resources and explain what to build, buy, delegate, or leave for later.
Admission to practice in a U.S. jurisdiction and eligibility to practice as in-house counsel in California.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a leading law firm.

Responsibilities

Lead customer and partner negotiations, including enterprise agreements, API distribution and reseller arrangements, data processing agreements, and vendor contracts.
Create contract templates and negotiation playbooks that support growth and protect the company’s interests.
Counsel technical teams on product design, data use and retention, international processing, and security commitments; translate legal requirements into actionable decisions and policies.
Monitor laws, regulatory developments, and industry practices affecting the products and business, develop informed positions, and advise on when and how to act.
Establish contract intake, approval, signing, and management processes.
Build guidance and tools for routine legal matters, using automation and AI where they improve speed and reliability.
Own how employment, corporate, governance, intellectual property, and other legal matters are handled; identify when specialist advice is needed and translate it into clear next steps.
Select and manage outside counsel, set priorities and budgets, and determine what to handle internally.
Assess future legal-function needs, including tooling, a contracts manager, additional counsel, or other support.
Build trust across the company, engage early, resolve difficult questions, and make recommendations that account for legal exposure, commercial stakes, and practical alternatives.
Prioritize limited resources and determine what to build, buy, delegate, or defer.