Commercial Contracts Manager

ABOUT NOOKS

Nooks is pioneering Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service (CIaaS) — designing, building, and operating Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) and other secured, classified environments for the defense and national security community. We work with the agencies, contractors, and mission-driven organizations that keep the nation safe, delivering the physical infrastructure that makes classified work possible. We’re growing fast, operating across multiple markets, and building a company that takes both the mission and the business seriously.

About the Role

You own the contract cycle for Nooks’ commercial contracts: reviewing, redlining, and negotiating agreements with third parties from first draft through signature, including amendment and revisions as needed. Nooks needs these agreements to reach signature faster, without conceding terms under deadline pressure. You deliver both by drafting the contracts playbook with outside counsel and working every deal against it. You report to the VP of Growth, take legal direction from outside counsel, and work as a full-time individual contributor.

At Nooks, we move fast. While you’ll have clear ownership over your core responsibilities, startup life means priorities can shift. We’re looking for a proactive problem-solver who is comfortable with ambiguity and ready to lean in wherever the team needs them most to drive us forward.

Key Responsibilities

Commercial Negotiation

• Review, redline, and negotiate commercial customer agreements, including service agreements, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), and teaming agreements, against approved playbook positions.
• Decide non-material terms within guidelines and escalate material terms, such as price and duration, to the VP of Growth with a recommendation.
• Draft and negotiate amendments, extensions, and renewals of executed commercial agreements, keeping each change consistent with current playbook positions.

Playbook and Enablement

• Draft the commercial contract playbook, setting standard, fallback, and walk-away positions for approval by the VP of Growth and outside counsel.
• Maintain commercial templates and the playbook, proposing updated positions when negotiation patterns or counsel guidance show a standard no longer holds.
• Train the Growth team on playbook positions so routine terms get resolved in the sales conversation rather than in your review queue.

Deal Support and Reporting

• Prepare contract content for proposals, including terms, exceptions, and representations and certifications, and contribute broader proposal content when a pursuit requires it.
• Maintain a complete record of every commercial agreement you handle through a contracts lifecycle management tool, including executed versions, approvals, key dates, and renewal triggers.
• Track and report contract cycle time and playbook deviations to the VP of Growth, identifying which terms or steps slow deals.
• Review all commercial customer, vendor, and supplier agreements for the company.

The Skillset

• Five or more years reviewing, redlining, and negotiating commercial agreements with substantial independence.
• Working command of core commercial terms: liability limits, indemnification, insurance, termination, service levels, and payment.
• Track record negotiating directly with customer legal and procurement teams, holding positions while keeping deals moving.
• Ability to understand the business requirements and translate that into terms in the agreement
• Experience drafting or maintaining contract templates or playbooks with defined standard and fallback positions.
• Plain-language writing that explains contract risk to non-lawyers and frames clear escalation recommendations.
• Comfort working independently, while soliciting direction from Legal, Growth, and Government delivery functions across the business.
• J.D. or Paralegal certification, highly preferred.
• Experience contracting with defense contractors or other cleared-industry customers.
• Experience managing a Contracts process using a Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) system or structured contract repository, a plus.

Compensation & Benefits

Yearly bonus structure and equity ownership, premium health coverage, 401(k) employer contribution, flexible time away.

Eligibility & Clearance

Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. An active security clearance is preferred but not required.

Location-Specific Addendums

You work independently your agreements cover  across every location and lifecycle phase. No commercial contract playbook exists today, so you build the standard first and then hold every deal to it. Expect occasional travel for company events and select customer negotiations.

What Success Looks Like in This Role

An approved commercial contract playbook governs every customer negotiation, and the Growth team resolves routine terms without routing them to you. Commercial agreements reach signature on a predictable cycle time that you track and report, and deals no longer stall in contract review. Deviations from approved positions are rare, documented, and escalated before signature rather than discovered after. Every executed commercial agreement, amendment, and renewal sits in a complete record with key dates tracked. Leadership relies on you to tell them, before a deal closes, exactly which terms Nooks is accepting and why.

Cross-Functional Expectations

You partner daily with the Growth team and negotiate directly with customer legal and procurement teams. You execute on outside counsel’s legal direction and bring material terms to the VP of Growth for decision. Pricing, government contracts, regulatory flow-down clauses, and security classification requirements sit with other owners; you route them rather than resolve them.