Chainguard
Senior Counsel, Commercial
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Senior Counsel, Commercial (UK/EMEA) – Job Description
About Chainguard
Chainguard is the trusted source for open-source software. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds for engineers and AI agents, Chainguard enables organisations to build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global leaders such as Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.
The company is venture-backed by top investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.
The Role in a Nutshell
We are seeking a Senior Counsel, Commercial to serve as a cornerstone legal advisor to our Go-To-Market (GTM) organisation. This high-impact, customer-facing role fosters revenue growth while protecting the company’s interests.
As Chainguard’s first dedicated commercial counsel in the UK, you will shape our EMEA commercial strategy, collaborate closely with our expanded legal team, and align with regional colleagues. This opportunity empowers you to lead transactional legal activities across Europe and provide direct coverage for East Coast US deals.
The ideal candidate is a results-driven commercial attorney, driven in high-energy environments with a track record of strategic autonomy. You thrive on negotiations, drafting commercial agreements, partnering with sales teams, and ensuring open-source licensing, regulatory compliance, and deal execution seamlessly.
Key Responsibilities
- Primary Legal Advisor for GTM (EMEA): Support customer transactions from early structuring to final execution, managing 4+ new deals weekly.
- Transatlantic Coverage: Provide legal due diligence, refinements, and approvals for East Coast US deals, coordinating with the US team.
- Contract Drafting & Negotiation:
- Lead drafting and negotiations of SaaS agreements, enterprise contracts, professional services agreements, NDAs, partner agreements, and channel agreements.
- Develop and update standard form agreements, including online platform terms, universal licence agreements, and order forms.
- High-Stakes Client Interaction: Engage directly with sophisticated client counsel from industries like financial services, insurance, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals.
- Open Source & Compliance:
- Ensure commercial contracts align with open-source licensing considerations and industry best practices.
- Navigate DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act), GDPR, EU, and UK privacy law impacts in agreements.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Work alongside Product, Product Legal, Security, and Sales teams to align legal guidance with technical and business goals.
- Risk & Autonomy:
- Deliver prudent, high-quality advice that balances legal risk with commercial imperatives.
- Manage complex matters independently in a fast-evolving scale-up environment.
- Process Improvement:
- Contribute to scalable, efficient contracting frameworks as the EMEA team grows.
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The Ideal Candidate
Required Qualifications
- Juris Doctor (JD) or equivalent, with active bar or solicitor membership.
- 5+ years of high-calibre commercial legal experience, combining both law firm and in-house technology company roles.
- Strong drafting, not just negotiation skills (preferences for drafting entire new contracts, not just amending third-party templates).
- Experience tailoring agreements for enterprise technology, SaaS, subscription models, and professional services.
- Proven expertise negotiating highly regulated deals (financial, healthcare, cybersecurity).
- Familiarity with open-source licensing principles and concern compliance.
- Working knowledge of DORA, GDPR, and EU/UK privacy frameworks.
- Background in cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, or directly related sectors preferred.
Core Competencies
- Business-focused mindset: Balances legal precision with commercial flexibility.
- Exceptional written communication & stakeholder rapport with C-level executives, Sales, Product, and Security.
- Self-motivated, autonomous, and thrives in fast-paced growth environments.
- Adaptive, with strong judgment in prioritising legal risk vs speed.
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Location & Career Growth
- Based in the UK (offices broadly open to candidates in other EMEA hubs with existing teams).
- The role offers unprecedented commercial leadership in Chainguard’s EMEA expansion, shaping client-facing legal strategies and setting benchmarks for the region.
Why Join Us?
Competitive Compensation
- Base Salary: £132,000 – £155,000 GBP.
Culture
We embody our values at Chainguard:
- Customer obsession — solutions build trust, not just features.
- Fast, intentionally disruptive action, not bureaucratic stalling.
- A playful attitude toward work, with the focus to execute serious challenges.
- Trust, transparency, and challenging assumptions to foster decentralised decision-making.
- Flexibility ensures innovation. Healthy work-life balance ensures sustained delivery.
Benefits
- Remote-first culture with bi-annual destination summits, a €850/year coworking space budget, and support for phone/internet costs.
- Generous equity: stock options on hire & promotion, plus participation in secondary sales with 10-year vesting—longer than industry standard.
- 100% covered health insurance ( vitamins, routine, specialisation—all fully subsidised for you and dependents).
- Unlimited time off (recharge to reset, not a fixed holiday scheme).
- Bespoke parental leave: 18 weeks for birthing parents / 12 weeks for non-birthing parents (able to customise usage through the first year).
We’re Not Looking for Perfect Fit
If your experience is complementary, apply anyway—we prioritise openness, unique insights, and Chainguardians (maybe newly titled).
We’re an equal opportunity employer. We stand against discrimination, bias, and exclusion in all forms, including race, gender, religion, disability, or veteran status.
By applying, you consent to Chainguard’s Global Candidate Privacy Notice.
© 2026 Chainguard. All rights reserved.
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