About Backblaze
Backblaze is the object storage leader in the open cloud movement, fueling customer success with cloud storage built purposefully to unlock budgets, unburden administrators, and unleash innovators. Together with our partners, we’re helping customers break free from the restrictive, overpriced legacy solutions that hold them back, and blaze forward with the full power of the open cloud in their hands.
Founded in 2007, we scaled the business with less than $3 million in outside funding until 2021, when we did a traditional IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Today, Backblaze generates over $100m in revenue and is the leading specialized storage cloud - managing over three billion gigabytes of data storage for 500K+ customers in 175+ countries, including businesses, developers, IT professionals, and individuals.
About The Role
We are seeking a Sr. Commercial Counsel to join our Legal and Compliance team! This role is responsible for providing legal support on a broad range of commercial matters with a focus on complex technology transactions. You will work cross-functionally to identify business risks associated with commercial terms and propose mitigation strategies. You will also assist in developing playbooks, processes and policies associated with Backblaze’s contracting activities.
This role requires strong business acumen, a substantive knowledge of contracts and commercial laws, and the ability to both work independently and with large multi-stakeholder teams. We are looking for someone with sharp analytical and communication skills, who is diligent, proactive, collaborative, and has demonstrated excellent legal and business judgment and strategic thinking.
What You’ll Do:
As a Senior Commercial Counsel at Backblaze, you will be a key legal advisor and business partner, playing a pivotal role in enabling scalable growth while protecting the company’s interests. You will lead and drive the commercial contracting function, collaborate cross-functionally, and help strategize and support our expanding global footprint.
Contract Drafting, Review, and Negotiation
- Take the lead in drafting, reviewing, and negotiating a high volume of complex commercial agreements, including SaaS agreements, Master Services Agreements (MSAs), Statements of Work (SOWs), Terms of Service (TOS), Data Protection Agreement (DPA), privacy policies, channel partner agreements, professional services agreements, consulting agreements and other related commercial agreements.
- Serve as the senior escalation point for complex or high-risk negotiations, and provide guidance to stakeholders as needed.
- Ensure consistency and alignment with business priorities, legal best practices, and risk management principles.
Strategic Legal Advice and Risk Mitigation
- Provide thoughtful, practical legal counsel on contract structuring, negotiation strategy, and interpretation, balancing business needs with legal risk mitigation.
- Identify, assess, and clearly communicate legal and commercial risks, and recommend creative, business-focused solutions.
- Stay abreast of changes in law and regulation, particularly in areas relevant to SaaS, data privacy, artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and commercial contracting.
Commercial Strategy and Enablement
- Lead the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of Backblaze’s commercial contracting strategies, playbooks, and policies.
- Define and refine the Legal team’s approach to managing enterprise and channel agreements to ensure scale, speed, and alignment with company objectives.
- Contribute to long-term planning to help Legal evolve alongside business growth and global expansion.
Process Optimization and Operational Efficiency
- Proactively identify inefficiencies or friction points in the contracting process and develop innovative solutions to increase speed and quality.
- Manage the end-to-end pipeline of agreements to ensure timely review and delivery in accordance with internal service level expectations (SLAs).
Cross-Functional Collaboration and Support
- Act as a trusted partner to Sales, Finance, Marketing, InfoSec and other teams, aligning legal support with go-to-market and operational priorities.
- Deliver contract training, guidance, and policy support to internal stakeholders to promote better understanding of contractual risk and company policies.
- Collaborate with Compliance, Security, Products, Engineering, and other stakeholders to ensure alignment on regulatory obligations and data protection requirements.
The Right Fit:
- Experience with SaaS commercial transactions, including applicable regulatory and privacy laws
- Experience negotiating and closing deals with Enterprise customers
- Experience providing pragmatic and actionable advice to internal clients on legal risks with a focus on practical solutions and a proven track record of success.
- Sound business judgment, and flexibility/adaptability to manage multiple wide-ranging matters, conflicting deadlines, and new areas of expertise as business needs change
- Proven ability and commitment to work both independently and collaboratively with numerous people at all levels throughout the organization
- Excellent organizational, analytical, and communication skills to express complex legal matters in clear, concise, business-friendly language with a strong record of effective cross-group collaboration
- Reliable and hands-on, with strong prioritization skills managing a variety of assignments and deadlines
- 10+ years of relevant legal experience, with a focus on complex technology transactions, and with at least 5 years in-house (preferably at a high-growth technology company).
- You will work cross-functionally to identify business risks associated with commercial terms and propose mitigation strategies. You will also assist in developing playbooks, processes and policies associated with Backblaze’s contracting activities.
- J.D. degree (or equivalent degree) and an active legal membership
At this point, we hope you're feeling excited about the job description you're reading. Even if you don't meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply. Learning, developing, and growing are key parts of our culture. We're eager to meet people who believe in our mission and can contribute to our team in various ways. We want people to feel comfortable expressing their true selves and to come, stay, and do their best work here.
At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. That’s why diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We believe that our dedication to cultivating a diverse workspace not only allows us to better serve our customers in over 175 countries, but further reinforces our commitment to doing the right thing. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.
To understand more about the data we collect and process as part of your application, please view our Backblaze Employee Privacy Notice.
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