Director, Technology Attorney

Who are we?

Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company that tackles cities' greatest challenges. We create products and solutions, invest in new companies, and help developers build more sustainable, innovative, and equitable places around the world. Our ambitious vision requires us to push ourselves beyond conventional thinking, and we work hard in pursuit of our mission. Our cross-disciplinary team consists of experts from real estate, urban planning, government, finance, technology, and engineering, among other backgrounds.

Our urban innovations include Delve (a generative design product that empowers real estate teams to design better, faster, with less risk), Mesa (an easy-install kit for commercial buildings that cuts energy costs, improves tenant comfort, and simplifies building operations), Pebble (a low-cost vehicle sensor to help manage parking and curb space), and Affordable Electrification (a new way to manage home energy use to meet a customer’s monthly budget). We're also developing an offsite construction company that can deliver high-quality mass timber buildings for more sustainable living and working.

With the potential to radically improve quality of life in cities for all, our work is both exciting and complex. We are working to achieve something unprecedented — help us build it!

What is the role?

We're looking for a strong Director-level attorney who will work independently but in sync with our legal team, reporting to our General Counsel.

This role will provide broad support to Sidewalk’s existing product businesses as well as future incubations. This role will also oversee privacy and data governance matters. We are confident this opportunity will be interesting to you if you have a curiosity for urban development, thrive on cross-disciplinary work, and enjoy tackling novel questions and problems.

What We Expect

Strong Legal Foundation:

• You have a JD, and are admitted to the NY Bar.
• 8+ years of experience in a combination of firm and in-house roles. You’ve worked as an associate at a top-tier firm to build a dynamic legal foundation for your career, and have additional experience working in-house as a legal partner across many teams.
• Experience drafting and negotiating software licensing, SaaS and other technology service agreements, including data processing agreements and service level agreements, and general commercial agreements.
• You have excelled at being a product and technology lawyer with in-house experience advising on all legal aspects of the product lifecycle from incubation/ideation through launch and commercialization.
• You have strong experience in commercial contracting, complex partnerships, licensing, technology transactions, compliance and regulatory matters, intellectual property and privacy.
• You have advised senior business leaders on data security and privacy implications of existing and new technologies and/or platforms.

Stellar Partner:

• This work requires a legal expert and adept business partner. Our team relies on exceptional collaboration to get our work done; you are no exception to this workstyle.
• You will need to work with and supervise outside counsel and review their work product.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with an aptitude for working cross-functionally.

Bias to action:

• You will have autonomy in this role. We’ll trust you to self-direct, but it’s crucial you have an inherent bias to action.
• Our team at large relies on you to be a proactive partner; you keep the process moving and you get things done quickly, every time.
• You’re known to chase down the answers when you don’t have them to take your work across the finish line.

Flexibility:

• In this role you will own and execute on both exciting and not-so-exciting work. All of it is crucial to deliver on our vision and mission.
• We expect you to have a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-dive-in attitude all the time. This is a startup — your scope will change and stretch and you’re happy to roll with the punches.

What You Will Achieve

After 3 months you will

• Have built a strong network inside of Sidewalk Labs, understanding the breadth of our work and our operating model.
• Have taken the lead on supporting customer acquisition and retention for our product and incubation teams, through creation and execution of vendor agreements, term sheets, terms of use, product launch processes, patent and trademark filings, and other matters.
• Manage and oversee relationships with relevant outside counsel.

After 6 months you will

• Have successfully completed a product launch framework and process, in partnership with our Policy and Communication team, that lays out a process to ensure our product and engineering launches for demos, pilots, and products are conducted in a way that:
  • (i) increase visibility of product launches in the organization,
  • (ii) ensure all product launches meet a quality and usability bar that reflects the Company’s standards,
  • (iii) do not unnecessarily increase risk to the Company, and
  • (iv) follow processes that are legally required.

After 12 months you will

• Have successfully integrated into the product teams providing the highest level of legal advice and counsel.
• Develop and implement best practices and process improvements for various product teams.
• Negotiate and manage an array of technology agreements.

We are very excited to hear from you.

Sidewalk Labs is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We actively seek applicants from underrepresented communities. Even if you are not 100% sure you are right for the role, please apply and we will be happy to consider your application. All employment is based on merit and business need, and we respond to each application we receive.