Senior Legal Counsel, Ashby
$200-250k
OTE
+ Stock Options
All-in-one recruiting software
Be an early applicant
All-in-one recruiting software
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
$200-250k
OTE
+ Stock Options
101-200 employees
Company mission
To redefine the applicant tracking system (ATS) category, providing talent teams with analytics, workflows and automation.
Role
Who you are
- Juris Doctor from an accredited law school and active license to practice law in the US
- 6 - 8 years of legal experience across a top tier law firm and in-house experience at a fast growing startup
- Strong understanding of and experience in advising on privacy laws: GDPR and CCPA
- Demonstrated ability to handle diverse legal matters independently while maintaining excellent judgment and managing multiple priorities
- Clear communication style that translates legal advice into plain english and next steps for our team to clearly understand and action
- Bonus: Prior experience as an early legal hire in a fast growing SaaS or AI company
- You’re excited about contributing to growth. You fundamentally view the role of an in-house legal team as a key contributor and cross-functional partner to fuel Ashby’s significant growth, rather than as a gatekeeper
- You value ownership. You are excited about being the first dedicated Legal Counsel at Ashby and the breadth of the role
- You are skilled at building cross-functional relationships. This role will require you to work with many different Ashby teams and with any of our 2,700+ customers. Establishing strong relationships, particularly with leadership team members is crucial to the success of this role
- You are solutions-oriented. You provide highly commercial and clear legal advice that clearly considers relevant business context and you have strong operational follow-through
- You are proactive and can ruthlessly prioritize. You can easily spot areas of improvement across the legal process and operations and can work with cross-functional teams on education and process improvements. You can simultaneously manage both longer term legal projects with the need for providing day to day advice
- You are detail-oriented. Understanding the specifics of our products and business and applying relevant legal advice are critical in this role
- You are adaptable and innovative. You embrace continuous learning and actively apply new insights to improve your work, including looking for new technologies to create more efficiency in the legal team
What the job involves
- We are looking for a motivated Sr. Legal Counsel to be a key contributor to Ashby’s growth by providing the Ashby team with day to day legal support and shape and scale our legal framework
- As our Senior Legal Counsel, you’ll work closely with me and collaborate with our leadership and wider teams to provide incisive, commercial and solutions-oriented advice across a breadth of areas including commercial contract negotiation, data & privacy, AI regulation, employment, corporate and IP
- We are looking for a Legal Counsel that has experience in rapidly scaling organizations, can strongly advocate to both customers and to internal leaders, is highly organized and thrives in a dynamic environment
- You must be able to balance both timely execution and setting the long term legal foundations for Ashby to minimize risk while scaling
- Review, draft and negotiate a wide range of commercial agreements including customer agreements and Order Forms, vendor contracts, SaaS agreements, and help to proactively develop and iterate Ashby’s Terms of Service
- Lead international privacy law compliance process, including reviewing and negotiating DPAs for vendors, and Ashby customers. Provide advice on privacy and data protection issues with demonstrated experience complying with GDPR and CCPA obligations
- Work closely with our product team to proactively advise on legal and compliance considerations for new products and features. Collaborate with our PMM team to create external facing collateral, clearly outlining Ashby’s approach to compliance and FAQ for new products
- Partnering closely with the Ashby Security team to respond to security incidents, including drafting relevant security related communications
- Provide proactive advice by staying up to date on relevant industry regulations and developments, particularly in the regulation of the use of AI in the hiring process across our key regions and privacy law developments (GDPR and CCPA)
- Work on a wide range of legal matters as they arise or are proactively identified, including IP, employment, global expansion and fundraising
- Help identify and advocate for solutions that proactively address legal risks across the business as we continue scaling and develop internal legal training and FAQ
- Manage relationships with external counsel across commercial, privacy, corporate and employment areas
- Help shape the legal function’s operations and structure as Ashby continues to grow, including identifying opportunities for innovation through technology
Application process
- Deadline to Apply: August 19, 2025 at 5:00 PM GMT+1
- Our interview process is thorough - we assess if you are the right fit for Ashby and we will provide ample information for you to determine if Ashby is the right place for you. The process for this role is as follows:
- Recruiter Screen with Anna - 30min
- Hiring Manager Interview with our Chief of Staff (Katie) - 45min
- Practical Assessment
- Final Round - 2.5 hours
Our take
Reportedly, 50% of employers don’t use applicant tracking systems, largely because of blockers with implementation or insufficient buy-in from top management. Ashby's co-founder and CEO, Benji Encz, experienced first-hand how existing solutions failed to support hyper-growth hiring needs whilst working at PlanGrid, which is in part what led to the creation of the company.
Ashby is looking to redefine the ATS category - providing talent teams with analytics, workflows and automation - and intends to replace solutions from well-established vendors like Greenhouse and Lever with algorithms. The company's AI can schedule interviews and infer demographic data, which clients use for aggregate analyses of DEI hiring metrics.
The market for recruitment software could potentially reach $3.5 billion by 2030. Unsurprisingly, there is now a growing number of startups emerging to compete for a slice of it. Despite the crowded market and having only emerged from stealth in 2022, Ashby has already secured over 500 clients (including high-profile customers like Notion and Figma). The company has also attracted impressive funding which will be used to expand its product offering beyond what is typically expected from an ATS.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jul 2025
$50m
SERIES D
Jun 2024
$30m
SERIES C
Total funding: $114.5m
Company benefits
- Unlimited PTO with four weeks recommended per year
- 10-year exercise window for stock options - you shouldn’t feel pressure to purchase stock options if you leave Ashby, do it when you feel financially comfortable
- Generous equipment, software, and office furniture budget
- $100/month education budget with more expensive items (like conferences) covered with manager approval
- Twelve weeks of fully paid family leave
Company HQ
SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Benjamin Encz
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously the Director of Engineering and Part-Time Recruitment Operations at PlanGrid. They also worked as a Software Engineer at Make School and was a Lecturer at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW).
Abhik Pramanik
(Co-Founder)VP of Engineer at Ashby. Previously a Senior Product Manager at Lob and a Senior Product Manager at PlanGrid.
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