Director, Legal - Solo.io

About Solo.io

Solo.io is reimagining infrastructure for cloud and AI. We unite secure, seamless cloud connectivity with AI-ready, agentic infrastructure, and leading enterprises worldwide trust us to securely connect their applications, services, and AI workloads across any environment.

Joining Solo means working at the center of how enterprises adopt AI: on open source projects built in the open with a global community, alongside the people who created them, for customers who are among the largest in the world. If you want to help organizations accelerate innovation, scale intelligently, and put modern AI agents to work, we’d love to meet you.

About the Role

Solo.io is hiring a Director of Legal to lead our legal work in-house. You'll report to the CFO and work closely with the CEO and leadership team. The role is based in Boston or remote within the US.

You'll be the company's go-to legal partner across commercial contracts, employment, privacy, open source, corporate governance, and strategic matters. You'll handle most work directly and bring in outside counsel when a matter calls for it.

The ideal candidate has a strong commercial contracts background and wants broader exposure across commercial, employment, and corporate law as a step toward a General Counsel role.

Note: This role may require occasional travel.

Responsibilities

• Review, draft, and negotiate customer, partner, reseller, and vendor agreements, NDAs, and order forms with sales, finance, and other teams.
• Own our contract templates and playbooks. Update them for current market terms, including AI, data, and security provisions.
• Ensure legal operations are fast and streamlined utilizing Ironclad, AI tools, and value-added processes.
• Advise on data privacy and security commitments, including data processing agreements, GDPR, and customer security reviews.
• Advise on open source licensing, contributor agreements, and participation in open source foundations.
• Manage outside counsel and the legal budget for specialized matters.
• Maintain our library of standard documents, policies, and procedures.

Additional Potential Scope

• Draft and negotiate employment documents, such as specialized offer letters and separation agreements.
• Support People Ops on compensation, benefits, immigration, and international employment matters.
• Support corporate matters, including board materials, equity administration, entity management, and periodic financing or strategic transactions alongside outside counsel.
• Help shape internal policies on AI use and governance.
• Advise on trade compliance and export controls.
• Review external communications with marketing, including press releases, the website, and social media.

Requirements

• JD from an accredited law school and an active license to practice in at least one US state. Ability to register as in-house counsel in Massachusetts.
• 7–10 years of commercial legal experience at a law firm, in-house, or both. In-house experience at a software or SaaS company is strongly preferred.
• Deep expertise drafting and negotiating enterprise software agreements, including SaaS, licensing, data processing, and partner agreements.
• Comfort working as a team of one, owning work end to end and leveraging outside counsel when needed.
• Sound judgment on legal, commercial, and reputational risk, offering practical advice that keeps deals moving.
• Strong organization skills and the ability to manage many matters at once across teams and time zones.
• Clear, plain-English communication skills with engineers, sales leaders, and executives.

Nice to Have

• Experience with open source licensing.
• Experience with privacy and AI regulation, such as GDPR and the EU AI Act.
• Exposure to corporate and transactional work, such as financings, equity, or M&A.
• Experience implementing contract management or AI legal tools.

Work Authorization

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a permanent, ongoing basis without the need for current or future visa sponsorship.