Head of Legal

Posted 6 Days Ago
Be an Early Applicant
Scotts Valley, CA, USA
In-Office
240K-280K Annually
Senior level
Energy • Renewable Energy
The Role
The Head of Legal will manage all legal matters, including drafting commercial agreements, protecting IP, ensuring compliance, and providing legal advice to stakeholders.
Summary Generated by Built In
What to Expect

Heron Power is a startup building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid. We aim to debottleneck the growth of electricity generation and consumption with scalable, innovative, and cost-effective hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything.

Our first goal is to build better converters (inverters & rectifiers) to connect large-scale renewables, storage, and loads to the grid. Heron’s leadership team is made up of seasoned veterans who have designed and shipped gigawatts of power conversion products.

We believe no one person knows everything. We learn together, build together, and solve hard problems from first principles. You’ll work in a fast-moving, deeply technical environment where ownership and impact are real.

Job Overview

We are seeking a Head of Legal to serve as Heron Power's first in-house trusted legal partner to the entire company. As the company scales from R&D toward mass production and customer deployments, you will lead execution of commercial contracts with customers, suppliers, and partners. You’ll also own the critical legal workstreams for a hardware startup, including protecting our IP portfolio, negotiating leases, and ensuring proper compliance with applicable regulation. You are a leader who is technically exceptional while simultaneously solutions oriented, and knows how to balance commercial execution vs. critical risk protection.

This is a high impact role that will own every legal workstream end-to-end, and have a direct seat at the table on key business decisions. You’ll manage relationships with outside counsel and be an individual contributor short-term, with the capacity to recruit a dynamic legal function as Heron scales.

How You Will Contribute
  • Draft, negotiate, and manage the full spectrum of commercial agreements — customer supply agreements, long-term service agreements (LTSAs), supplier purchase agreements, NDAs, consulting and service agreements

  • Develop Heron's standard contract playbook, including templates, systems, and processes that allow the business to move quickly

  • Own and execute Heron's IP strategy in partnership with engineering leadership, coordinating with outside counsel on patent & trademark filings

  • Collaborate with HR on employment law compliance across the full employee lifecycle — offers, immigration, equity, performance, and separations

  • Manage corporate legal matters including entity formation, governance, insurance, and fundraising support

  • Provide informed advice to cross-functional partners across environmental permitting, data privacy and cybersecurity, tax credit eligibility

  • Ensure compliance with export controls, trade regulations, and other requirements relevant to global hardware deployment

  • Recruit, motivate, and manage future legal team members

What You Will Bring

We have a short list of must-have requirements. We prioritize a strong grip on first principles, hands-on skills, and a sense of initiative. Domain-specific knowledge and experience will help determine the career level for each hire.

Must-Have Requirements
  • JD from an accredited law school

  • 8+ years of legal experience, with a meaningful mix of law firm and in-house roles; high-growth technology company or energy project development experience strongly preferred

  • Demonstrated experience negotiating complex commercial agreements involving hardware, manufacturing, or physical goods, including supply, procurement, or deployment contexts

  • Working knowledge of IP strategy and patent/trademark portfolio management; you don't need to be a patent attorney, but you know how to work with one

  • Familiarity with equity, securities, and corporate governance matters at a venture-backed company

  • Comfort with the ambiguity and juggling multiple projects; you're as comfortable rolling up your sleeves on an NDA as you are advising the CEO on a strategic deal

  • Exceptional communication skills and judgement, with the ability to distill complex legal concepts into practical advice for non-legal stakeholders

  • Genuine enthusiasm for AI-powered legal tools and a bias toward building leverage through systems, not headcount

Nice-to-Haves
  • Background in power electronics, energy, climate tech, or capital-intensive manufacturing

  • Familiarity with 45X or similar federal tax credits

If you are passionate about technology and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, we would love to hear from you. Join us in accelerating the electrification of everything at Heron Power.

Heron Power provides competitive compensation (salary and equity) and benefits. The salary for this role ranges from $240,000 to $280,000 per year.

Am I A Good Fit?
beta
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.

The Company
HQ: Scotts Valley, California
43 Employees
Year Founded: 2024

What We Do

Energy demand across industries is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, and the need for more deployable, efficient, resilient, and scalable infrastructure has never been more critical. The sustainable energy transition alone demands a 3-5x increase in global electricity generation and consumption. Heron Power is building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid. We aim to debottleneck the growth of electricity generation and consumption with scalable, innovative, and less costly hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything.

Similar Jobs

Notion Logo Notion

Head of Commercial Legal

Artificial Intelligence • Productivity • Software
Hybrid
2 Locations
1000 Employees
360K-400K Annually
In-Office
Redwood City, CA, USA
548 Employees
211K-264K Annually

Superpower Logo Superpower

Head of Legal

Healthtech • Information Technology • Software
In-Office
San Francisco, CA, USA
148 Employees

Inhouse Logo Inhouse

Head of Legal Services

Artificial Intelligence • Consumer Web • Legal Tech • Generative AI
Hybrid
2 Locations
5 Employees

Similar Companies Hiring

UL Solutions Thumbnail
Automotive • Professional Services • Software • Consulting • Energy • Chemical • Renewable Energy
Chicago, IL
15000 Employees
Runwise Thumbnail
Greentech • Hardware • Real Estate • Software • Energy • PropTech
New York, NY
199 Employees
Energy CX Thumbnail
Greentech • Professional Services • Business Intelligence • Consulting • Energy • Financial Services • Utilities
Chicago, IL
108 Employees

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account