Senior Counsel, Commercial (Enterprise)

Perplexity

$150K — $200K *
Legal & Accounting
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • JD and active US state bar membership
  • 7+ years law firm or in-house experience
  • Expertise in enterprise sales and SaaS agreement negotiation
  • Strong business acumen for cross-functional collaboration
  • Ability to simplify legal concepts for non-lawyers
  • Proactive and solutions-oriented work style
  • Positive, adaptable, and collaborative mindset

Responsibilities

  • Draft, review, and negotiate a range of commercial agreements for enterprise clients
  • Support enterprise sales teams with timely and business-friendly legal advice
  • Enhance compliance and data security through effective negotiations
  • Provide guidance on AI-specific legal issues in agreements
  • Develop scalable legal templates and negotiation strategies
  • Streamline legal processes and tools for efficiency
  • Collaborate with various teams to identify and mitigate legal risks
  • Stay updated on regulatory changes affecting AI and SaaS agreements

Benefits

  • Work in a high-impact, hands-on legal role
  • Join a forward-thinking team in a leading AI company
  • Opportunity to build and improve legal processes
  • Collaborative environment across multiple departments
  • Engagement with cutting-edge technology and industry standards
Full Job Description
Perplexity AI is looking for a Senior Counsel, Commercial (Enterprise) to be a key legal partner to our growing enterprise business. In this role, you'll own the full commercial legal lifecycle for Perplexity Enterprise Pro and API customers from negotiating and closing complex enterprise agreements to building the scalable legal infrastructure that enables us to move fast without unnecessary risk.

You'll work closely with our enterprise sales, GTM, security, and product teams to close deals, strengthen our data security and compliance contracting posture, and serve as a trusted advisor on the AI-specific legal questions that come with operating at the frontier of this technology. The ideal candidate brings deep experience negotiating enterprise SaaS and API agreements, a strong command of data privacy and security frameworks, and the practical judgment to make principled risk calls independently.

This is a high-impact, hands-on role for a commercially minded attorney who thrives in fast-paced environments, knows how to be a true partner to sales without being a bottleneck, and is excited to help build a best-in-class legal function at one of the most consequential AI companies in the world.

Key Responsibilities
  • Lead end-to-end drafting, review, and negotiation of commercial agreements for Perplexity Enterprise Pro and API customers, including MSAs, Order Forms, SaaS subscription agreements, API terms, DPAs, BAAs, and NDAs with the experience to own deals from initial redline to signature.
  • Serve as the primary legal partner to enterprise sales and GTM teams, providing fast, practical, and business-aligned counsel that accelerates deal velocity without compromising on risk management.
  • Advance Perplexity's compliance and data security contracting posture including negotiating data processing agreements, security addenda, and responding to customer security and compliance questionnaires in close partnership with the Security and Privacy teams.
  • Advise on AI-specific legal considerations embedded in enterprise and API agreements, including acceptable use, data retention and training restrictions, output liability, and evolving regulatory requirements (e.g., EU AI Act, CCPA/CPRA, GDPR).
  • Build and maintain scalable legal infrastructure including contract templates, negotiation playbooks, and fallback positions to support high-volume enterprise deal flow and reduce friction in the sales cycle.
  • Implement and continuously improve legal processes and tools (e.g., CLM, self-serve workflows) to enable the business to move quickly while maintaining visibility and control over contractual commitments.
  • Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Security, Finance, and Compliance teams to surface and address legal risk early, particularly on matters related to data use, enterprise integrations, and customer-specific compliance requirements.
  • Monitor the evolving regulatory landscape for enterprise AI and SaaS products, and translate emerging requirements into practical contractual and policy guidance for internal stakeholders.


Qualifications
  • JD and in good standing with an active US state bar membership
  • At least 7+ years of law firm and/or in-house experience
  • Track record of drafting and negotiating enterprise sales and SaaS agreements
  • Strong business acumen and ability to partner with business and technical teams
  • An ability to communicate clearly with business and technical audiences and effectively translate legal concepts for non-lawyers
  • Hands-on attitude to tackle projects large and small, low-ego approach to working across the organization
  • Positive collaborative attitude, comfort with change and a fast pace, high level of integrity, and intellectual curiosity
  • Comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment

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