Commercial Counsel

We're building the company which will de-risk the largest infrastructure build-out in history.

When people finance GPU clusters, the datacenters housing them, and the infrastructure powering them, they need "offtake" - meaning someone has signed a contract to lease the cluster for a period of time before its even built.

Financing a GPU cluster is inherently risky, since margins are thin and volumes are huge. Lenders don't want to take on the risk that cluster developers can't repay their loan, and cluster developers really don't want to risk not selling their cluster. As a result, risk is offloaded to the customer using fixed-price long-term contracts.

If you don't mitigate this customer risk, there's a bubble. This isn't SaaS anymore - application layer companies sign multi-year contracts for computer and inference, but sell to customers on monthly subscriptions. If you mess up a purchase, it's game over: a minor shift in your revenue growth rate might mean the difference between profit or bankruptcy. But what if companies could exit their contract by selling it back to the market?

Otherwise, as AI scales, compute only becomes available to folks who can effectively take on that risk. A 2-person startup in a San Francisco Victorian can't realistically sign a 5-year take or pay contract on $100m supercomputers. But they may be able to buy the month of liquidity that someone else sold back.

So that's what we make: a liquid market for GPU offtake.

SF Compute is looking for a Commercial Counsel to help build and scale our commercial legal function as we grow our AI infrastructure business. This role will partner closely with Sales, Business Development, Finance, Operations, Engineering, and leadership teams to structure, negotiate, and execute high-impact commercial agreements that enable the business to move quickly while managing risk.

You will own a broad range of commercial transactions, including enterprise customer agreements, strategic partnerships, technology agreements, vendor contracts, and infrastructure-related deals. This is a highly collaborative role for a practical, business-oriented attorney who enjoys operating in ambiguity, solving complex problems, and building scalable processes in a fast-moving technology environment.

The ideal candidate combines strong commercial judgment with a genuine interest in AI, compute infrastructure, and emerging technologies. You will help create the legal foundation that allows SF Compute to scale responsibly and efficiently.

This role is based in our San Francisco office and requires working onsite five days per week. We believe close collaboration and in-person partnership are critical as we build the legal foundation for a rapidly scaling AI infrastructure company.

• Draft, review, negotiate, and manage commercial agreements, including enterprise customer agreements, master services agreements, vendor agreements, technology agreements, strategic partnerships, NDAs, and other similar contracts.

• Partner with Sales, Business Development, Finance, Operations, and Engineering teams to structure deals that align with business objectives while appropriately managing legal and commercial risk.

• Serve as a trusted legal advisor to business teams, providing practical guidance on contract strategy, negotiation approaches, and business tradeoffs.

• Support commercial transactions involving AI infrastructure, compute services, data center operations, technology partnerships, and other strategic initiatives.

• Develop and improve contract processes, playbooks, and frameworks that enable teams to move faster while maintaining appropriate controls.

• Identify and proactively address legal, regulatory, privacy, intellectual property, and operational considerations impacting commercial activities.

• Work cross-functionally with internal stakeholders and external partners to drive deals from initial discussions through execution.

• Bring strong ownership and judgment to new and evolving legal challenges as the company scales.

  Who You Are

• JD from an accredited law school and active membership in at least one U.S. state bar (California preferred)

• 3-5+ years of legal experience, including experience at a leading law firm and/or in-house legal team.

• Strong experience drafting and negotiating a broad range of complex commercial technology agreements.

• Experience supporting technology companies, cloud infrastructure, AI, data centers, SaaS, hardware, or other technical businesses strongly preferred.

• Ability to understand complex technical products and translate business objectives into practical legal solutions.

• Comfortable operating independently in a fast-paced, high-growth environment with evolving priorities.

• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build trusted relationships across technical and non-technical teams.

Team members are offered a competitive salary along with equity in the company

Yes, we sponsor visas and work permits

We match 401(k) plans up to 4%

We offer competitive medical, dental, vision insurance for employees and dependents and cover 100% of premiums

We offer unlimited paid time off as well as 10+ observed holidays

We offer biological, adoptive, and foster parents paid time off to spend quality time with family

We cover lunch daily for employees

You can buy as many books for the office as you want

The San Francisco Compute Company is committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination and harassment.

We make employment decisions based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, belief, national origin, social or ethical origin, age, physical, mental, or sensory disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, civil union or domestic partnership status, past or present military service, HIV status, family medical history or genetic information, family or parental status including pregnancy, or any other status protected by law.

We welcome the opportunity to consider qualified applicants with prior arrest or conviction records. Our commitment to diversity includes hiring talented individuals regardless of their criminal history, in accordance with local, state, and federal laws, including San Francisco’s Fair Chance Ordinance and California’s ban-the-box laws.