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Beacon AI is building an AI platform to make aviation safer, more efficient, and more capable. The company is backed by top investors, has secured a dozen Department of Defense contracts, and partners with major airlines on mission-critical systems. As Head of Legal, you will own the day-to-day legal workflow and practical business operations that reduce founder burden.
Your primary responsibilities include: (1) managing contract and deal flow—running intake, drafting, review, negotiation support, signature, and filing for NDAs, vendor agreements, consulting agreements, partnership/pilot agreements, MSAs/SOWs, and data/security addenda; (2) supporting government and defense contracting with outside counsel coordination, tracking key contract obligations, and translating complex agreements into plain English for internal teams; (3) managing IP and information hygiene through invention assignment paperwork, patent/trademark coordination, and open-source software compliance; (4) owning people-related agreements including offer letters, contractor agreements, confidentiality, invention assignment, and separation paperwork; (5) driving business operations including vendor onboarding, insurance renewals, corporate filings, document retention, and signature authority; and (6) managing outside counsel relationships, scoping work, maintaining budget discipline, and ensuring legal advice translates into actionable next steps.
Success in the first 90 days means establishing a working contract intake and approval process, creating core templates (NDA, consulting agreement, MSA/SOW, vendor agreement, pilot/POC agreement), building an obligations tracker for key contracts and renewal dates, clarifying outside counsel escalation rules, and meaningfully reducing founder time spent on routine legal and operational churn.
You should have either 5+ years as a senior paralegal or contracts/ops professional supporting legal work in-house or at a firm, OR a Juris Doctor with hands-on experience negotiating and managing commercial contracts and strong operational instincts. You must close loops, prioritize effectively, communicate tradeoffs in plain English, and work comfortably with executives and cross-functional partners. Nice-to-haves include government contracting exposure (FAR/DFARS basics, primes/subs, flowdowns), export controls familiarity, IP workflow experience, and startup experience.
This is a hybrid role based in San Carlos, CA, requiring 3+ days per week onsite. Due to U.S. export control regulations, only U.S. Persons (U.S. citizens, Green Card holders, lawful permanent residents, or individuals granted asylum or refugee status) can be hired; visa sponsorship is not available.
