Director, Commercial Legal

<div class="content-intro"><h3><strong>About Us</strong></h3> <div>Temporal is an open source programming model that can simplify code, make applications more reliable, and help developers focus on the important things like delivering features faster. We are on a mission to be the reliable foundation of every developer’s toolbox, and are building the team that will make that happen.</div> <div> </div> <div>Our values guide us —they are present in how we show up, make decisions, and work together to make an impact. We’re curious, driven, collaborative, genuine and humble.</div> <div> </div> <div>Temporal is growing and we are looking for those who share our values, challenge 'standard' thinking, and want to influence our future. If you have a passion for improving the developer experience, building world-class open-source software and communities, and want to be a part of our amazing team, we'd love to hear from you!</div></div><h3>Summary</h3> <p>Temporal is looking for a Director, Commercial Legal to build and lead the commercial legal function from the ground up. Reporting directly to the General Counsel, you will be the founding architect of how Temporal contracts, negotiates, and scales its commercial legal operations. This is a hands-on builder role — you'll lead a contracts manager from day one and build and grow the team over time, but you'll be expected to stay close to the work, embedded in the business, closing deals and solving problems in real time.</p> <p>This is an opportunity for someone who is genuinely excited about building — creating systems, playbooks, and processes that didn't exist before, and doing it in a way that is smart, scalable, and AI-forward.</p> <p> </p> <h3>What You’ll Do</h3> <ul> <li>Own and lead Temporal's commercial legal function end-to-end, covering both customer-facing agreements and vendor contracts, serving as the primary legal partner to Sales, Revenue Operations, and Finance</li> <li>Draft, negotiate, and close a broad range of commercial agreements across all deal sizes, from small velocity deals to complex enterprise contracts, including MSAs, DPAs, NDAs, partnership agreements, and bespoke addenda</li> <li>Negotiate and manage key vendor and procurement agreements, including SaaS subscriptions, technology licenses, and professional services contracts, while building scalable playbooks and best practices for vendor intake and risk assessment</li> <li>Build the commercial legal function from the ground up: design and implement scalable contracting frameworks, a CLM system, sales enablement materials, playbooks, and internal trainings</li> <li>Drive continuous improvement of commercial legal processes and policies, leveraging automation and AI-enabled tools to reduce cycle times and free bandwidth for high-impact work</li> <li>Serve as a strategic advisor across commercial matters, exercising sound judgment that balances business objectives, legal risk, and operational precedent</li> <li>Manage and develop a contracts manager, with an eye toward growing the team as the business scales</li> <li>Partner cross-functionally with Privacy, Security, Product, and Finance to ensure commercial terms are accurate, defensible, and forward-looking</li> <li>Translate complex legal and contractual concepts into clear, actionable guidance that empowers business stakeholders to self-serve where appropriate</li> </ul> <h3>What You'll Bring</h3> <ul> <li>Admitted and in good standing in at least one U.S. jurisdiction, with extensive in-house experience supporting go-to-market or commercial teams; law firm background is a plus</li> <li>10+ years of experience drafting and negotiating enterprise commercial agreements across a wide range of deal sizes and structures in a B2B SaaS or cloud environment</li> <li>Proven track record supporting fast-moving sales organizations and understanding where deals get stuck</li> <li>Demonstrated experience building commercial legal infrastructure, including CLM system ... (truncated, view full listing at source)