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Head of Legal Operations

San Francisco

Thinking Machines Lab's mission is to empower humanity through advancing collaborative general intelligence. We're building a future where everyone has access to the knowledge and tools to make AI work for their unique needs and goals. 

We are scientists, engineers, and builders who’ve created some of the most widely used AI products, including ChatGPT and Character.ai, open-weights models like Mistral, as well as popular open source projects like PyTorch, OpenAI Gym, Fairseq, and Segment Anything.

About the Role

We’re looking for a leader to build our legal operations function from the ground up. You'll own the systems that let legal scale with the company: contract management, vendor relationships, legal tech stack, and the processes that connect legal work to the rest of Thinking Machines.

This is a high-autonomy role that requires initiative and strategy. The measure of its success is ensuring that our most important business initiatives stay unblocked and well-supported.

What You'll Do

  • Select, implement, and manage our legal technology stack, including contract lifecycle management (CLM), matter management, and e-billing systems.
  • Track legal team performance in terms of time and spend with KPIs and dashboards.
  • Own the end-to-end contract lifecycle from intake and triage through execution and renewal, building scalable processes, templates, and self-service tools.
  • Manage relationships with outside counsel and legal service providers, including budget and performance tracking.
  • Partner with Finance, IT, Procurement, and business teams to keep legal processes aligned with how the company operates.

Skills and Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

  • 8+ years of experience in operations, with at least some experience in legal operations
  • Proven track record of building or scaling legal operations functions from early stages
  • Deep expertise in legal technology, including CLM platforms (e.g., Ironclad, DocuSign CLM, Agiloft), e-billing systems, and matter management tools
  • Strong analytical skills with experience gathering metrics to drive decisions
  • Excellent project management abilities, running multiple initiatives simultaneously

Preferred qualifications — we encourage you to apply if you meet some but not all of these:

  • Experience at a high-growth technology or AI company
  • Familiarity with AI-powered legal tools and emerging legal tech
  • Background in contract management, paralegal work, or legal practice
  • CLOC certification or equivalent legal operations training
  • Experience managing outside counsel in complex regulatory or IP-heavy environments

Logistics

  • Location: This role is based in San Francisco, California.
  • Compensation: Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $215,000 - $300,000 USD.
  • Visa sponsorship: We sponsor visas. While we can't guarantee success for every candidate or role, if you're the right fit, we're committed to working through the visa process together.
  • Benefits: Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.

As set forth in Thinking Machines' Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

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