Senior Commercial Counsel (Enterprise)

Perplexity, a cutting-edge AI technology company, as a Senior Commercial Counsel. In this high-impact role, you will negotiate directly with large enterprise customers across various industries, partner with multiple internal teams, and advise on legal questions related to AI products deployed in enterprise environments. You will lead the drafting, review, and negotiation of enterprise customer agreements, extend and maintain the existing negotiation playbook, and monitor the evolving regulatory landscape for enterprise AI and data protection. This position requires a proactive problem-solver with strong business acumen and a passion for AI technology.

About Perplexity AI

Someone who can articulate complex legal risk and concepts in the form of simple, actionable terms for non‑legal stakeholders, leads with practical “how to make this work” advice, and designs creative, long‑term solutions to novel, cutting‑edge challenges

Responsibilities

• Independently lead end-to-end drafting, review, and negotiation of Enterprise customer agreements across our suite of offerings.
• Serve as a trusted legal partner to Enterprise Sales, Partnerships, Deal Desk, and Customer Success, providing fast, practical, business-aligned counsel.
• Extend and maintain the existing Enterprise negotiation playbook, DPA and Privacy Notice architecture, product-specific term libraries.
• Someone genuinely excited by novel, cutting‑edge challenges in AI products and the commercial and regulatory questions they surface, and who enjoys turning ambiguity into clear, reusable approaches
• A proactive problem‑solver who defaults to “yes, and” when engaging with internal stakeholders: you look for ways to make deals work, frame risk clearly, and design long‑term, scalable solutions
• Exceptional communicator who owns deadlines, proactively manages internal and external expectations, and escalates early and clearly to protect deal timelines and momentum
• A disciplined drafter who favors surgical, minimal‑footprint edits over wholesale rewrites, grounds positions in documented rationale, and preserves material legal meaning and risk allocation under time pressure
• Hands-on, can-do approach to tackle projects large and small, low-ego approach to working closely with the Director and across the organization, and judgment about when to escalate and when to close
• Strong business acumen and the ability to partner effectively with Sales, Deal Desk, Product, Security, and executive stakeholders on live deals under time pressure
• Demonstrated ability to build and extend durable legal infrastructure — playbooks, templates, precedent repositories, or self-serve tools

Requirements

• Proven ability to triage and progress multiple concurrent deals under tight timelines while maintaining rigorous diligence, clear risk assessment, and high‑quality documentation
• Ability to communicate clearly with business and technical audiences and to translate legal concepts into usable guidance for non-lawyers, including Sales and Deal Desk
• Familiarity with data protection and security frameworks (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, DORA, EU AI Act) and hands-on experience negotiating DPAs
• Experience advising on commercial terms and pricing structures for high‑growth SaaS/API businesses, including usage‑based and tiered pricing, pilots, and expansion frameworks
• At least 7+ years of combined law firm and in-house experience, with a substantial in-house component, and a demonstrated track record of independently owning complex enterprise SaaS or API deals from the vendor side, including work with regulated-industry customers (financial services, healthcare, or government)
• Experience with contracting with regulated entities (financial institutions or health care), especially in the EU/UK

Preferred

• Prior experience with public-sector contracting or with on-prem deployment structures
• Experience with AI-native contracting questions related to agentic products

Pay

USD 200,000 - 290,000

• Positive collaborative attitude, comfort with ambiguity and a fast pace, high level of integrity, and intellectual curiosity about AI technology
• JD and in good standing with an active U.S. state bar membership