Strategic Transactions & Partnerships Counsel

Fireworks
San Mateo, US
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

A natural match if you have experience in complex commercial transactions and a deep understanding of the AI ecosystem.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with 9+ years of in-house and law firm experience in commercial transactions and AI-related legal work
    — “9+ years of relevant experience, with significant complex commercial transactional work, ideally spanning law firm and in-house.”
  • Legal professionals who can align deal strategy with executive-level business goals
    — “Partner directly with executive stakeholders to align deal strategy with business objectives.”

Things to consider

  • This role demands independent leadership of high-stakes agreements without prior templates
    — “Serve as the legal architect on first-of-their-kind deals where there's no template to work from.”
  • The candidate must be comfortable with ambiguity and evolving AI legal landscapes
    — “Deep familiarity with the AI ecosystem and the novel legal questions it raises.”

How to stand out

  • Highlight your experience in structuring novel agreements and leading complex deals end-to-end
    — “Demonstrated experience leading sophisticated deals — procurement, partnerships, licensing — independently and end-to-end.”
  • Emphasize your ability to advise on AI-specific legal and commercial implications
    — “Advise on the commercial and strategic implications of the evolving AI landscape.”
  • Showcase your use of AI tools to improve legal workflows and efficiency
    — “AI-forward, builder’s mindset, with a demonstrated ability to use AI tools to streamline daily workflows and accelerate efficiency.”
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · MediumAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · Company

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • complex agreement negotiation
  • legal strategy alignment
Typical background
9+ years legal experienceJD

Skills & requirements

Required

Commercial TransactionsStrategic PartnershipsModel LicensingLegal Negotiation

Preferred

AI Ecosystem KnowledgeLegal Compliance

About the role

Original posting from Fireworks via Ashby

ABOUT US:

Fireworks is the platform for specialized intelligence, enabling companies to build, train, and serve AI models tailored to their own data, workflows, and products. Founded by the team behind PyTorch and backed by AMD, Atreides, Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Lightspeed, NVIDIA, Sequoia Capital, and TCV, Fireworks powers production AI with hundreds of state-of-the-art open models across text, image, embedding, audio, and multimodal workloads. Today, Fireworks is a Series D company valued at $17.5 billion, bringing together an ambitious, collaborative team that's building the future of enterprise AI.

About the Legal team

We're building the infrastructure that democratizes access to intelligence. By serving state-of-the-art models to enterprises and advancing open source, we enable organizations to truly own their own intelligence. Our legal team exists to make that mission possible, responsibly and at scale, because we believe broad access to AI is one of the most consequential things we can build for society. Our legal team is defined by high integrity, high character, and high trust. We're low-ego, collaborative, kind, and supportive people who are genuinely excited to be part of a team. We win together or not at all.

About the role

As Strategic Transactions & Partnerships Counsel, you'll be a foundational member of a growing legal team, leading our most complex and consequential commercial deals. You'll operate at the intersection of large-scale procurement, strategic commercial partnerships, and model licensing — structuring and negotiating novel, high-stakes agreements that shape the trajectory of the business. This is a role for someone who thrives in legally unsettled territory and understands the AI ecosystem from the inside. This role initially reports to the General Counsel.

What you'll do.

  • Negotiate and structure complex agreements, including commercial transactions, strategic partnerships, large-scale compute procurement, and licensing arrangements.
  • Serve as the legal architect on first-of-their-kind deals where there's no template to work from.
  • Partner directly with executive stakeholders to align deal strategy with business objectives.
  • Advise on the commercial and strategic implications of the evolving AI landscape.
  • Help build the transactional infrastructure and playbooks a scaling legal function needs.

Minimum Qualifications

  • 9+ years of relevant experience, with significant complex commercial transactional work, ideally spanning law firm and in-house. Experience in hypergrowth environments preferred.
  • A JD and membership in at least one US state bar.
  • Demonstrated experience leading sophisticated deals — procurement, partnerships, licensing — independently and end-to-end.
  • Deep familiarity with the AI ecosystem and the novel legal questions it raises.
  • Strong executive presence and the judgment to navigate ambiguity with confidence.
  • AI-forward, builder’s mindset, with a demonstrated ability to use AI tools to streamline daily workflows and accelerate efficiency.

Why Fireworks?

  • Solve Hard Problems: Tackle cutting-edge legal challenges at the forefront of AI infrastructure.
  • Build What’s Next: Work with bleeding-edge technology that impacts how businesses and developers harness AI globally.
  • Ownership & Impact: Join a fast-growing, passionate team where your work directly shapes the future of AI—no bureaucracy, just results.
  • Learn from the Best: Collaborate with world-class teams who thrive on curiosity and innovation.

Total compensation for this role also includes meaningful equity in a fast-growing startup, along with a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package. Base salary is determined by a range of factors including individual qualifications, experience, skills, market data, and work location.

Fireworks AI is an equal-opportunity employer.

WHY FIREWORKS?

  • Solve Hard Problems: Tackle challenges at the forefront of AI infrastructure, from low-latency inference to scalable model serving.
  • Build What’s Next: Work with bleeding-edge technology that impacts how businesses and developers harness AI globally.
  • Ownership & Impact: Join a fast-growing, passionate team where your work directly shapes the future of AI—no bureaucracy, just results.
  • Learn from the Best: Collaborate with world-class engineers and AI researchers who thrive on curiosity and innovation.

Fireworks AI is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all innovators.

Source: Fireworks careers (Ashby)

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