Senior Counsel, Benchling
Commercial & Employment, EMEA
More information about location
3 days a week in office
Cloud-based platform for biotech R&D
Be an early applicant
Cloud-based platform for biotech R&D
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
3 days a week in office
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To unlock the power of biotechnology.
Role
Who you are
- Experience: 7+ years of general relevant legal experience, with at least 5 years in house specifically focused on commercial enterprise SaaS transactions. Understand SaaS contracting norms and market terms. Experience supporting sales and go-to-market activities in biotech, healthcare, or life sciences industries is a plus. Experience navigating employment law across multiple European jurisdictions is preferred
- Qualified attorney or solicitor (or EU equivalent) with experience in an English-speaking jurisdiction required
- Strategic Thinker: Proven ability to provide entrepreneurial, pragmatic, and business-oriented legal advice, balancing legal risk with business objectives. You can translate complex legal concepts into actionable frameworks for non-legal colleagues
- Autonomous and Collaborative: Comfortable operating autonomously in a fast-paced, high-growth environment. Also a team player who can build strong, trusted partnerships with leadership and cross-functional teams with a customer-service oriented mindset
- Exceptional Communicator: Outstanding written and verbal communication skills. You can advocate for a position without legalese, maintaining a collaborative and open-minded approach
- Organized and Detail-Oriented: Highly organized, reliable, and diligent, with the ability to manage multiple issues simultaneously and set appropriate priorities
- Growth Mindset: You embrace change and practice with kindness, humility, integrity, and humor. You are also intellectually curious and proactively seek ways for the legal team to positively impact the business
What the job involves
- We are looking for a mission-driven, collaborative, and highly motivated individual to join Benchling as a critical member of the legal team
- As Senior Counsel, EMEA Legal, you will be a trusted advisor to Benchling’s EMEA teams, supporting revenue growth in Europe and guiding compliance across multiple jurisdictions
- This is a unique opportunity for an experienced, pragmatic, and business-oriented attorney to provide legal guidance focused on commercial transactions, privacy, and regional employment law
- Commercial Transactions: Own and manage the full lifecycle of commercial contracts for our EMEA operations. This includes structuring, drafting, and negotiating SaaS agreements, professional services and outsourcing agreements, partner agreements, DPAs and security addendums, and other operational agreements for customers
- You'll work closely with our EMEA sales, revenue operations teams and deal desk to accelerate deals, provide strategic legal advice on complex issues, and ensure efficient, timely support for customer negotiations and other commercial transactions
- Process Improvement: Collaborate with the Head of Commercial, Legal and other global legal team members to develop and implement efficient, scalable, localized contracting policies, practices, and processes
- You'll also evolve and manage training programs for the EMEA sales organization on negotiation best practices and relevant legal issues
- Risk Mitigation and Business Partnership: Apply sound judgment to assess risks associated with non-standard legal positions and collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement practical mitigation strategies
- You'll provide clear, concise guidance to senior stakeholders on legal risks and liabilities within proposed commercial transactions, finding creative solutions to drive successful deal completion while fostering positive internal and external relationships
- Employment Law: Partner with our global HR, legal, and business leaders on a wide range of European employment law matters
- You will proactively identify and mitigate employment legal risks and disputes leveraging your experience, and manage relationships with local outside counsel
- You will also guide the business on hiring, compensation, commission plans, benefits, performance management, leaves of absence, and contingent workers across multiple jurisdictions
- Compliance and Data Protection: Maintain a working knowledge of relevant European laws and regulations related to privacy customer data protection and advise on their implications for Benchling's business in EMEA. Have a working knowledge of regional laws more broadly, to effectively collaborate on global expansion, local compliance, and people matters
Salary benchmarks
Our take
As the pioneer of the R&D Cloud, Benchling offers a cloud-based informatics platform tailored for biotechnology. Its platform enables scientists across the globe to make breakthrough discoveries and bring next-gen biotechnology to market.
There’s a sincerity and consciousness to Benchling’s approach that stands out. This has led to the company being adopted by over 200,000 scientists from 1,000+ companies and 7,500 academic and research institutions globally (including 23andMe, Moderna, and the U.S. Department of Defense).
The rapidly advancing Biotechnology industry was at the forefront of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution”, with the industry driving $2 to $4 trillion per year of economic impact over the next 20 years.
Benchling has put itself in a position of immense value within the industry with its expanding offerings. And now, off the back of over $400 million in total funding, the company is seeing accelerated growth.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-3% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Nov 2021
$100m
SERIES F
Apr 2021
$200m
SERIES E
Total funding: $411.2m
Company benefits
- Competitive salary and equity
- Robust healthcare benefits
- Family-forming benefits
- Four months of fully paid parental leave
- Retirement benefits
Company HQ
Yerba Buena, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Sajith Wickramasekara
(Co-Founder & CEO)Sajith studied at MIT before spending 2 years as a Research Assistant at Duke University Medical Centre and Liquidia Technologies. They used this biotechnology understanding to found Benchling in June 2012, serving as CEO since.
Ashu Singhal
(Co-Founder & President)They previously co-founded Hotspots.io which was later acquired by Twitter in 2012. After this, became Staff Software Engineer at Twitter for 2 years, leaving to co-found Benchling.
Share this job
View 25 more jobs at Benchling