Role description
Commercial Counsel
San Francisco Compute CompanyAbout San Francisco Compute
San Francisco Compute exists to give ambitious teams large scale supercomputers without taking on a catastrophic balance sheet risk. Most GPU clouds force you to sign long term contracts with no way out. If you underbuy, you miss the window. If you overbuy, you’ll blow up with no way out. It’s a desperate gamble that San Francisco Compute does not force you to play.
Originally, SFC was an AI lab that bought too big of a GPU cluster and was forced to sublease it or go under. Today, we build data centers and supercomputers, then lease those machines on contracts that let our customers sublease. More than anyone else in the industry, we deeply felt the pain and fear of being forced to bet the farm with your neocloud vendor. To enable subleasing, we invented the first compute market and became the first to offer physical settlement. That means we operate GPU clusters like a neocloud and derisk our customers like a market.
Customers buying GPU clusters don’t want to work through a network of brokers. They want to transact with the folks that have the keys to the cluster and can own the SLA.
To keep the industry safe from unnecessary risk, SFC needs to scale fast. To do that, we serve financially motivated parties as a technical partner to build, operate, & lease supercomputers on their behalf. Basically, we help folks who want an economic return build GPU clusters on their balance sheet, but operated in full by us. That lets us retain the technical control needed to run a cloud while scaling fast like a market. SFC’s ability to offer subleasing can significantly increase the levered returns for cluster owners.
Our hybrid model outperforms brokered contracts or other “compute markets,” which have to go through a network of counterparties to solve problems. It also lets us design custom solutions for our customers, like clusters deployed in regions next to your dataset or physical eval set or a large CPU fleet deployed colocated with your GPU cluster.
Our team includes senior & technical leadership from places like Lambda, Crusoe, Digital Ocean, AWS, and Hut8. Our CTO is the cofounder and former CEO of Voltage Park. In prior roles, our team has deployed 8GW of datacenter capacity & hundreds of thousands of GPUs. We’ve been described as having “the highest talent density in the space.” If you are an honorable, gritty person with eyes wide open & good epistemics, who wants to see AI go right, we’d love to work with you.
There has never been a more critical moment in history and it is up to us to shape it on behalf of those who come after us.
About the Role
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.
What You Will Do
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.
Benefits
Generous equity grant
Team members are offered a competitive salary along with equity in the company
Visa Sponsorships
Yes, we sponsor visas and work permits
Retirement matching
We match 401(k) plans up to 4%
Medical, dental & vision
We offer highly competitive medical, dental, vision insurance for employees and dependents.
Time off
We offer unlimited paid time off as well as 10+ observed holidays
Parental leave
We offer biological, adoptive, and foster parents paid time off to spend quality time with family
Daily lunch
We cover lunch daily for employees
Unlimited office book budget
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.