Senior Counsel, Product & Privacy

Senior Counsel, Product & Privacy
About The Role

WEKA's General Counsel joined in 2025 as the company's first in-house lawyer, and a Senior Counsel focused on commercial contracting joined earlier this year. We are now hiring our third lawyer to own the product-facing side of the legal function: how WEKA builds and ships its technology, and how it handles data.

This is a true build role. WEKA is at the stage where its legal infrastructure needs to be built for scale, starting with a structured product review process and an upgraded privacy program that can grow with the company. You will build both alongside a hands-on GC rather than inherit a finished system.

You will report directly to the General Counsel and serve as the primary legal partner to Product, Engineering, and Security. Your work will center on two areas:

• Product counseling: building and running a risk-tiered legal review process for features and releases, so that Product and Engineering know when to involve Legal and can move quickly on routine launches.
• Privacy and data protection: upgrading WEKA's privacy program and building the infrastructure to scale it as the company grows, including the DPAs and security diligence that support customer deals.

You will work closely with the Senior Counsel, who owns commercial contracting and marketing review. You will be the subject-matter owner for the privacy, data, and product positions that show up in customer, neocloud, and partner agreements, and you will provide backup on commercial matters when the Senior Counsel's queue is at capacity. The ideal candidate is a practical, technically curious lawyer who enjoys working next to engineers, builds structure without bureaucracy, and gives clear answers rather than reflexive escalations.
Key Responsibilities
Product Counseling

• Build and run a risk-tiered legal review process (light, standard, and deep review) for product features and releases, including an intake form, a launch checklist, and criteria for when Engineering should bring in Legal.
• Serve as the primary legal partner to Product, Engineering, Security, and Support for NeuralMesh and WEKApod, from early design through launch and post-launch review, including product terms and EULAs, support and maintenance policies, and end-of-life.
• Partner with Product and Sales to develop customer-facing materials on key product and legal topics, anticipate customer questions, and help move deals forward.
• Advise on how products collect, process, and access data, including telemetry, diagnostics, and support access.
• Review inbound and outbound open-source use in the product and flag potential inventions to the General Counsel, who works with outside counsel on patent and trademark matters.
• Counsel on AI governance in product development and business operations, working with IT and other teams to operationalize WEKA's AI policy and track evolving regulatory requirements.
• Partner with Product and Supply Chain teams on export classification and screening considerations for product releases.

Privacy & Data Protection

• Build and own WEKA's privacy program and framework, and serve as the legal lead on AI governance in partnership with IT and Engineering.
• Assess then upgrade it and build the infrastructure for scalable compliance: update privacy notices and policies, standardize the DPA, and maintain a subprocessor list.
• Build the core program components: data mapping and records of processing, data subject request handling, vendor and subprocessor review, retention, and cross-border transfer mechanisms.
• Advise on GDPR and UK GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and other U.S. state and international privacy laws, as well as emerging AI regulations and standards, as they apply to WEKA's products, marketing, HR, and operations.
• Own the DPA playbook and serve as the escalation point for privacy and security terms in customer deals, with the Senior Counsel handling first-pass negotiation and routine security questionnaires, and use recurring customer questions to develop privacy collateral for use in the go-to-market process.
• Partner with Security on incident response, breach assessment and notification, and SOC 2 / ISO audit support.
• Work with HR on employee and candidate data, and with Marketing on website, events, and email practices.
• Partner with Product, Sales, and Marketing to develop privacy-focused customer materials for use in the go-to-market process.

Legal Operations & Policy

• Draft and maintain policies (privacy, data retention, AI use, and others as needed) and drive adoption across the company.
• Build the templates, playbooks, workflows, intake forms and self-service resources that let Product and Engineering move quickly with minimal legal touch on routine questions, using our CLM and AI tools where they fit.
• Deliver practical training for Engineering and Product on privacy-by-design and on when to engage Legal.
• Manage outside counsel and vendors efficiently, including support for the initial privacy program assessment.
• Provide backup support on commercial matters, such as NDAs, procurement contracts, and partner agreements, when the Senior Counsel's queue is at capacity. The Senior Counsel works with you on what to hand off, and product and privacy remain your primary focus.

Qualifications

• 6-9 years of legal experience at a law firm, in-house, or both, with meaningful experience counseling product and engineering teams at a technology company. Prior in-house experience at a startup or scale-up where you built programs rather than only executing within established ones is strongly preferred.
• Product counseling: Experience partnering with Product and Engineering on launches, ideally building or running a review process, and comfort translating legal requirements into terms engineers will use.
• Privacy law: Working knowledge of GDPR and CCPA/CPRA, and experience building or upgrading a privacy program, not only running a mature one.
• Customer privacy and security terms: Experience negotiating DPAs and responding to customer security and privacy diligence.
• Education & License: J.D. from an accredited law school and active bar membership in good standing.
• Outside Counsel Management: Experience managing external counsel and vendors efficiently across specialized matters.

What Will Set You Apart

• Technical Fluency: Comfort engaging in technical discussions about how distributed systems, storage, data flows, and software releases actually work. A computer science or engineering background, or the ability to read architecture diagrams and understand how data is stored and moved, is a plus.
• Practical Judgment: You decide what you can, escalate what you should, and explain risk in a way that helps the business move rather than slowing it down.
• Builder Mindset: Energized by creating programs, playbooks, and processes from scratch.
• Executive Presence & Crisp Communication: Distills complex issues into clear recommendations and writes clearly for non-lawyers.
• Project Management: Has driven multi-quarter initiatives to completion, such as a privacy program upgrade or a product review process rollout.
• Comfort with AI Tools: Understands the risks and limitations of AI in legal practice and actively looks for risk-appropriate ways to improve speed and quality.

Preferred Qualifications

• CIPP/US, CIPP/E, or a similar privacy or AI governance certification, or a desire to obtain one.
• Experience in enterprise software, infrastructure, data storage, cloud, HPC, or AI.
• Experience supporting SOC 2 / ISO 27001 audits and security incident response.
• Familiarity with open-source licensing, export controls (including encryption classification), and the EU AI Act.
• Commercial contracting experience, which helps with the backup support described above.
• Experience supporting international operations and cross-border data flows.

Why This Role

This is WEKA's third legal hire and the first dedicated to product and privacy. You will take over a real, active set of matters from the GC and the commercial team on day one, and you will have real ownership of how WEKA ships its technology and handles data as it scales.

Early on, you will assess WEKA's privacy program and prioritize the highest-impact upgrades (such as updated privacy notices and policies, a standard DPA, and a subprocessor list), take ownership of escalated privacy and security diligence, and launch a lightweight product intake form and launch checklist with Engineering. From there, you will build out the remaining privacy program components and refine the review process as volume settles into a routine. You'll do this with a collaborative GC who is directly involved in strategy and complex matters, at a Series E company with strong product-market fit, over 140 patents, and significant growth ahead. WEKA offers competitive compensation including equity participation.

USA Residents Only: The Total Compensation hiring wage range for this position which the Company reasonably and in good faith expects to pay for the position in the specified geographic areas or locations, is $190,000 - 230,000. Final compensation will be dependent on various factors relevant to the position and candidate such as geographical location, candidate qualifications, certifications, relevant job-related work experience, education, skillset and other relevant business and organizational factors, consistent with applicable law. In addition, the position may include some of the following comprehensive benefits such Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, 401(K), Flexible Time off (FTO), sick time, leave of absence as per the FMLA and other relevant leave laws.