Sr. In-House Counsel

Tenstorrent • $100K — $500K *
Legal & Accounting
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • JD and active state bar membership.
  • 5+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department.
  • Preferred background in technology, semiconductor, hardware, chip manufacturing, or supplier environments.
  • Experience in drafting and managing complex commercial agreements across the full contract lifecycle.
  • Expertise in data privacy and security awareness, particularly in global regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and APPI.

Responsibilities

  • Own end-to-end contract lifecycle management including drafting, negotiation, and execution.
  • Provide practical legal advice across diverse functions including Engineering, Product, and Sales.
  • Develop templates and playbooks to streamline contracting processes and reduce legal bottlenecks.
  • Guide teams on compliance and risk management in commercial and data privacy matters.
  • Communicate effectively with various stakeholders to facilitate understanding and collaboration.

Benefits

  • Hybrid or remote work options available.
  • Opportunity to work in fast-paced startup environment.
  • Exposure to cutting-edge technology and software agreements.
  • Build legal frameworks that support rapid organizational growth.
  • Collaborative and cross-functional work culture.
Full Job Description
Tenstorrent is hiring a Senior In-House Counsel to own key legal functions and serve as a hands-on partner to teams across the organization. In this role, you will take end-to-end ownership of the areas you support-guiding teams through the entire contract lifecycle, from intake and drafting through negotiation, execution, and ongoing management-while minimizing legal and compliance risk and serving as a trusted advisor to internal stakeholders, external partners, and vendors.

We seek someone who is adaptable, hands-on, and comfortable pivoting in a fast-paced startup environment. You will independently own competing priorities across commercial contracting, data privacy and security, compliance, and broader business matters, building the processes and playbooks that help the business move quickly and confidently.

This role is hybrid or remote and can be based out of Santa Clara, CA, Boston, MA, Toronto, ON or Austin, TX.

We welcome candidates at various experience levels for this role. During the interview process, candidates will be assessed for the appropriate level, and offers will align with that level, which may differ from the one in this posting.

Who You Are
  • A practical, solutions-oriented advisor. You balance business priorities with thoughtful risk management and can tell a real risk from a theoretical one, which is what lets you lead end-to-end negotiations on high-value strategic transactions and close impactful deals without leaving the company exposed.
  • A commercial contracting generalist. You move comfortably across MSAs, SOWs, software and technology licenses, SaaS and cloud services agreements, NDAs, data processing and AI addenda, marketing arrangements, and vendor/supplier agreements, and you manage them through the full lifecycle rather than handing them off at signature.
  • A builder, not just a reviewer. You create the templates, playbooks, fallback positions, and CLM workflows that let Sales, Channel, and Supply Chain scale without a legal bottleneck, and you reach for AI tooling to make legal operations faster and better.
  • An owner and a people-first communicator. You carry your work end to end, manage competing priorities independently, pivot quickly as a startup's priorities shift, and communicate with clarity and purpose across every team and level of the organization.

What We Need
  • Qualifications. A JD and active state bar membership, with 5+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department. Experience in a technology, semiconductor, hardware, chip manufacturing, or supplier environment is strongly preferred.
  • General commercial contracting. Experience drafting, structuring, negotiating, executing, and managing complex commercial agreements across the full contract lifecycle (MSAs, SOWs, software and technology licenses, SaaS and cloud services agreements, NDAs, data processing (DPA) and AI addenda, hardware sales, channel partner agreements, marketing arrangements, and vendor/supplier agreements), including the templates, playbooks, and fallback positions that let the business contract at scale.
  • Supply chain & manufacturing. Experience drafting and negotiating supply chain and manufacturing agreements, including foundry, manufacturing, procurement, supply, logistics, and third-party logistics (3PL) agreements.
  • Data privacy & security. Experience advising on global data protection, privacy, cybersecurity, and cross-border data transfer issues: DPAs, SCCs and transfer mechanisms, security terms, audit rights, breach and incident notification, and permitted data use, under frameworks such as GDPR, CCPA, and APPI.
  • Cross-functional partnership. Experience providing practical legal advice across functions (Leadership, Engineering, Product, Sales, Supply Chain, Finance, Security, IT, People, and Operations), with exceptional negotiation and organizational skills.

What You Will Learn
  • How to help architect the legal foundation for a company building the future of computing and scaling as a global, open-hardware technology company.
  • How to advise Leadership, Engineering, Product, and other teams on novel legal, compliance, privacy, and risk issues involving modern semiconductor and AI technology.
  • How to draft and negotiate the complex agreements that enable commercial growth and strategic partnerships, from strategic transactions and technology licenses to the hardware, channel, and manufacturing agreements unique to shipping silicon.
  • How to design legal infrastructure that scales: templates, playbooks, and policies built for regional and global consistency, and CLM workflows spanning intake, template generation, review and negotiation, approval routing, signature, storage, and post-execution obligation management.
  • How to become a trusted legal advisor who gives teams the autonomy to move quickly and confidently.


Compensation for all engineers at Tenstorrent ranges from $100k - $500k including base and variable compensation targets. Experience, skills, education, background and location all impact the actual offer made.

About Tenstorrent

Tenstorrent is a semiconductor company that designs and develops computer processors for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. The company's processors are designed to be energy-efficient and scalable, and are used by a range of businesses, from small startups to large enterprises. Tenstorrent was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.
Learn more about Tenstorrent
Size
51 employees
Industry
Founded
2016

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