AI Governance & Legal Counsel - Spotted Zebra

About Spotted Zebra

At Spotted Zebra, we're building an AI-native end-to-end hiring platform that helps the world's leading organisations find the right people, faster and fairer than ever before.

We're a multi-award-winning Series A company giving talent leaders the solution they've always needed. Skills science native. AI-amplified. Built by people who've lived and breathed TA and knew there had to be a better way.

What We Do

Spotted Zebra brings Interview Intelligence, Skills Assessments, and AI Interview Agent together in one platform. One powerful agent and assistant: Spot, working the way talent teams need it to, always with humans in control.

FTSE100 and Fortune500 companies trusting us include British Airways, NIQ, Domino's, Lidl, Merlin Entertainments, AWE, United Utilities, and Paramount. We've been named Personnel Today's Talent Acquisition Supplier of the Year 2025 and recently named on the UK Top 100 Startups List.

About the Role

Spotted Zebra helps large enterprise customers adopt AI-enabled hiring in a way that is practical, responsible, and defensible. As AI becomes more central to hiring, our customers need to understand how it works, how it is governed, how risk is managed, and how to secure internal approvals from AI governance, legal, privacy, procurement, and HR teams.

We are looking for an AI Governance & Legal Counsel to lead this work, reporting directly to our Co-founder & CCO.

This is a blended, customer-facing role. Your primary focus will be helping enterprise customers navigate AI and data governance from pre-sales through implementation. Internally, you will help Spotted Zebra build and maintain documentation, processes, regulatory understanding, and product-governance requirements.

Alongside these core responsibilities, you will act as Spotted Zebra’s primary in-house legal counsel. You will review, draft, and advise on customer and supplier agreements, help the business take pragmatic positions on contractual risk, and support general legal matters.

What You'll Be Doing

• Customer Governance Leadership: Own the AI and data governance workstream across customer implementations, guiding enterprise buyers through internal approvals with clarity and pace.
• Pre-Sales & Post-Sales Support: Answer customer questions regarding AI governance, human oversight, automated decision-making, fairness, bias, data protection, privacy, and regulatory readiness.
• Governance Documentation: Create, maintain, and tailor customer-facing documentation including AI governance packs, DPIA support materials, risk assessments, model cards, bias-audit evidence, candidate notices, and FAQs.
• Regulatory Tracking & Internal Governance: Track relevant AI and privacy legislation across operational regions, maintain our jurisdiction-by-obligation matrix, support ISO/IEC 42001 readiness, and coordinate independent bias audits.
• Product Collaboration: Translate governance requirements (consent capture, retention, human review, candidate notices, audit trails) into actionable product and process improvements.
• In-House Legal Counsel: Review and negotiate customer and supplier agreements, advise on commercial risk, manage external specialist counsel when needed, and maintain a pragmatic, business-enabling legal posture.

What Success Looks Like

• Clear, timely answers to customer governance inquiries that reduce implementation delays.
• Creation of repeatable templates, playbooks, standard responses, and governance workflows.
• Enterprise customer AI governance approval timelines reduced from 3–4 months to 1–2 months.
• Efficient, pragmatic review of customer and supplier contracts that protects the business while enabling growth.

Requirements

• Qualified Lawyer: Qualified in the UK or another relevant jurisdiction.
• US Regulatory Expertise: In-depth experience with AI regulation and governance in the US, with a strong understanding of US regulatory and enterprise market expectations.
• Customer-Facing Experience: Experience engaging with enterprise customers, AI governance committees, legal, privacy, procurement, and HR leadership.
• Commercial Legal Skills: Proven experience reviewing and negotiating commercial technology / SaaS agreements.
• Governance & Compliance Clarity: Ability to explain legal, regulatory, and complex AI topics clearly and practically to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Scale-up Mindset: Experience working in a startup or scaling technology environment, balancing governance rigour with commercial pragmatism.

Useful Experience

• Enterprise SaaS due diligence, customer assurance, or compliance approvals.
• HR technology, recruitment, assessment, or occupational psychology contexts.
• Drafting DPIAs, risk assessments, governance packs, or AI management system frameworks (e.g., ISO 42001).
• Managing specialist external legal counsel.

Benefits

• 🤝 Meaningful share options
• 🏥 Health insurance & dental cover
• 💰 Enhanced pension
• 🍼 Nursery salary sacrifice scheme
• 🏖️ 25 days holiday (excluding bank holidays)
• 🏠 Remote-first culture
• 💻 Home office budget & co-working space allowance
• 🧠 L&D budget
• 🧘 Wellbeing allowance & eye-care support
• ✈️ Travel insurance
• 🚗 Electric car scheme
• 🤖 Access to state-of-the-art AI tools