Senior Contract Manager

Slate Auto

44d

About The Position

As a Senior Contract Manager, you will play a critical role reporting to Slate’s Associate General Counsel, Commercial, by managing end-to-end pre-signature contracting process across a diverse portfolio of commercial agreements. This role supports both buy-side and sell-side contracting in a fast-paced automotive startup environment. The Contract Manager operates at the intersection of Legal, Sales, Procurement, Engineering, Supply Chain, Service, and Accessories team, helping stakeholders navigate contracting requirements, apply approved templates and playbooks, and move agreements efficiently through contract workflows. The role emphasizes process discipline, risk consistency, and excellent decision-making judgment. You will identify and mitigate business and legal risks, escalate issues for legal review when necessary, and deliver solutions-oriented support that represents Slate’s interests professionally to internal teams and external partners.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Legal Studies, Supply Chain, Engineering, Finance, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
3-6 years of contract management, contract administration, legal operations, or commercial contracting
Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple complex agreements concurrently
Clear written and verbal communication and relationship-building skills
Adept proficiency in MS365 suite, SmartSheets, and CLM tools
Contract process discipline and attention to detail
Practical understanding of commercial and operation risk in an automotive startup
Data literacy and ability to translate contracting metrics into actionable operational insights
Comfort working with legal technology and workflow systems
Ability to guide non-lawyers through structured contracting processes
Continuous improvement mindset

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with automotive or manufacturing industry a plus

Responsibilities

Manage pre-signature workflow from intake originating across multiple organizational functions
Participate in evaluation, implementation, change management, and use of CLM tools, ensuring clear visibility into status, approvals, and next actions
Coordinate effectively with Legal counsel and business stakeholders, balancing responsiveness with legal risk standards
Maintain organized contract records, version control, and audit-ready documentation throughout the review and negotiation process
Draft, review, and redline contracts using approved templates, clause libraries, and standard fallback positions
Coordinate negotiation input across Legal, Finance, Tax, Compliance, IT, Engineering, and Service stakeholders
Identify deviations from standard terms and escalate per defined playbooks and approval matrices
Maintain and continuously improve contract templates and clause libraries to support consistent risk management
Develop, update, and operationalize contracting and negotiation playbooks reflecting standard positions and escalation rules
Ensure playbooks are written for practical use by non-lawyers in Slate, Procurement, and Service teams
Maintain the Legal contracting SharePoint site or knowledge hub as a self-service resource for templates, guidance, FAQs, and intake instructions
Identify, design, and implement process improvements across contracting workflows, including intake, triage, review, negotiation, execution, and repository management
Drive standardization of intake, review, and execution process
Support change management initiative to improve adoption of contracting processes, templates, and tools across Legal and business teams
Partner cross-functionally to eliminate contracting inefficiencies