Product Counsel (Director)

Whatnot•San Francisco, CA

2d•$349,000 - $475,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops. As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our values and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact. We're one of the fastest growing marketplaces and were recently named the #1 Best Startup Employer in America by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce. We're looking for a Product Counsel leader to help build and lead Whatnot's product legal function. This is a player-coach role where you'll manage a small team while staying deeply hands-on across the legal questions that come with scaling a high-growth marketplace. You'll partner closely with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Policy, and Business Development, advising on product launches, consumer-facing features, commercial deals, privacy, and regulatory risk. We need someone who's seen enough legal terrain across areas such as consumer protection, privacy, marketing, payments, and platform policy to step in quickly, prioritize what actually matters, and give the business clear, actionable guidance. Beyond the day-to-day, you'll build the infrastructure that makes the team scale: playbooks, templates, risk frameworks, and the documentation practices that turn legal from a bottleneck into a force multiplier. The ideal candidate is a product counseling generalist who's genuinely curious, moves fast, and knows how to get to yes. You've built something before, not just maintained it.

Requirements

12+ years of legal experience, plus:
J.D. from an accredited law school and active bar membership (or eligibility to register as in-house counsel) in at least one U.S. state.
12+ years of legal experience, including substantial time advising on product and technology matters at a top-tier law firm and in-house legal department at a technology company.
Deep substantive expertise in at least several of the following: privacy and data protection (U.S. and international), consumer protection, platform/intermediary liability, intellectual property, advertising and marketing law, content moderation, and AI/ML governance.
Proven ability to provide practical, business-oriented legal counsel in a high-velocity environment – solutions-focused, not a bottleneck.
Strong executive presence and communication skills – you can distill complex legal issues into clear, actionable guidance for technical specialists, business leaders, and executives alike.
Experience working cross-functionally with product, engineering, and design teams throughout the full product development lifecycle.
Demonstrated ability to scale legal processes, build playbooks, and create systems that enable the business to move with confidence.
You are comfortable operating on a small team and will get in the weeds to produce results in a highly ambiguous environment. You are scrappy and no job is too small.
Experienced people manager with demonstrated experience building or leading a product counsel or technology law function, ideally from an early or nascent stage.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a consumer marketplace, e-commerce, live streaming, social commerce, or two-sided platform company.
Working knowledge of international product regulations, including the EU Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, and AI Act.
Experience advising on artificial intelligence and machine learning products, including generative AI, recommendation systems, and automated decision-making.
Familiarity with payments, financial services, or fintech regulation in the context of marketplace or consumer products.
Experience engaging with regulators, government agencies, or in public policy or advocacy contexts.

Responsibilities

Partner with the Deputy General Counsel and senior leadership to shape the long-term strategy, structure, and priorities of the product counsel function.
Manage a high performing product counsel team.
Co-develop playbooks, frameworks, and scalable processes that allow Whatnot’s product and engineering teams to move quickly while managing legal risk responsibly.
Represent the legal function as a credible, trusted voice in executive-level and cross-functional discussions, including with Whatnot’s leadership team.
Serve as the primary legal point of contact embedded throughout the product development lifecycle, advising Product, Engineering, Design, and Trust & Safety teams from initial concept through feature release and post-launch iteration.
Identify, assess, and drive resolution of legal issues related to privacy, data security, consumer protection, intellectual property, intermediary liability, advertising, and platform regulation.
Review and advise on product features, user flows, terms of service, in-app disclosures, and marketing claims to ensure legal compliance and appropriate risk allocation.
Advise on novel and rapidly evolving legal areas, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, recommendation systems, generative content, and live streaming regulation.
Monitor, interpret, and communicate the impact of evolving global regulations – including GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, the EU Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, the EU AI Act, COPPA, FTC rules, and other applicable frameworks – to relevant business and legal stakeholders.
Lead cross-functional responses to new or amended laws affecting product, partnering with privacy and policy colleagues to manage change effectively.
Advise on data governance, privacy-by-design practices, and data protection impact assessments in connection with new products and features.
Develop and maintain internal legal guidance, training, and educational resources to elevate legal fluency across product and engineering organizations.
Manage outside counsel relationships and external legal resources efficiently and strategically, ensuring quality and cost-effectiveness.
Serve as a strategic business partner and trusted advisor – not just a legal gatekeeper – to senior leaders across product, engineering, operations, and marketing.
Build strong relationships with stakeholders at all levels, enabling early legal integration into roadmap planning and strategic decision-making.
Collaborate with Trust & Safety, Security, and Policy teams on platform integrity, content moderation, and abuse prevention initiatives with legal dimensions.

Benefits

Generous Holiday and Time off Policy
Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
Work From Home Support
Home office setup allowance
Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
Care benefits
Monthly allowance for wellness
Annual allowance towards Childcare
Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses
Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally
Monthly allowance to dogfood the app
16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.