Head of Legal

The role

The Head of Legal will serve as the primary legal advisor and build the legal function from the ground up. This person will negotiate strategic commercial agreements and advise on legal and regulatory matters to support business growth.

What you will do

• Advise executive leadership on legal, strategic, and business matters.
• Own the negotiation and execution of enterprise customer, partner, supplier, reseller, technology, licensing, and data agreements.
• Develop standard agreements, negotiation playbooks, and contracting best practices.
• Manage corporate governance, Board support, and corporate records.
• Act as legal lead on corporate matters including financing transactions.
• Support acquisitions, investments, and strategic partnerships.
• Advise on privacy, AI governance, intellectual property, export controls, and data licensing.
• Develop practical legal policies, approval frameworks, and governance processes.
• Establish the legal operating model, including processes, systems, and templates.
• Manage patent and trademark portfolios.

Required qualifications

• J.D. from an accredited law school
• Active membership in the California Bar, or the ability to register as in-house counsel in California
• 8+ years of combined law firm and in-house legal experience
• Meaningful exposure to high-growth technology companies
• Significant experience negotiating complex enterprise technology and commercial agreements including software licensing, SaaS, AI, data, and technology transactions
• Ability to independently manage a broad range of legal matters without requiring extensive outside counsel support for routine matters
• Strong knowledge of intellectual property, privacy, and regulatory frameworks relevant to AI and technology businesses
• Excellent communication skills and ability to influence stakeholders across all levels

Nice to have

• Experience supporting AI, machine learning, robotics, geospatial, cloud infrastructure, or developer platform companies
• Experience with government contracting, public sector procurement, or defense customers
• Familiarity with global privacy laws, AI governance frameworks, and international commercial transactions
• Experience building or leading a legal function within a startup or scaling technology company

Benefits

• Medical coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• 401(k)
• Comprehensive benefits package

About the company

Niantic Spatial builds spatial AI models and services so people and machines can reason, learn and act safely in the physical world. They turn camera imagery, video, sensor data and archives into accurate, AI-readable representations of real places.