Director, Commercial Legal

Temporal is looking for a Director, Commercial Legal to build and lead the commercial legal function from the ground up. Reporting directly to the General Counsel, you will be the founding architect of how Temporal contracts, negotiates, and scales its commercial legal operations. This is a hands-on builder role — you'll lead a contracts manager from day one and build and grow the team over time, but you'll be expected to stay close to the work, embedded in the business, closing deals and solving problems in real time.

This is an opportunity for someone who is genuinely excited about building — creating systems, playbooks, and processes that didn't exist before, and doing it in a way that is smart, scalable, and AI-forward.

• Own and lead Temporal's commercial legal function end-to-end, covering both customer-facing agreements and vendor contracts, serving as the primary legal partner to Sales, Revenue Operations, and Finance
• Draft, negotiate, and close a broad range of commercial agreements across all deal sizes, from small velocity deals to complex enterprise contracts, including MSAs, DPAs, NDAs, partnership agreements, and bespoke addenda
• Negotiate and manage key vendor and procurement agreements, including SaaS subscriptions, technology licenses, and professional services contracts, while building scalable playbooks and best practices for vendor intake and risk assessment
• Build the commercial legal function from the ground up: design and implement scalable contracting frameworks, a CLM system, sales enablement materials, playbooks, and internal trainings
• Drive continuous improvement of commercial legal processes and policies, leveraging automation and AI-enabled tools to reduce cycle times and free bandwidth for high-impact work
• Serve as a strategic advisor across commercial matters, exercising sound judgment that balances business objectives, legal risk, and operational precedent
• Manage and develop a contracts manager, with an eye toward growing the team as the business scales
• Partner cross-functionally with Privacy, Security, Product, and Finance to ensure commercial terms are accurate, defensible, and forward-looking
• Translate complex legal and contractual concepts into clear, actionable guidance that empowers business stakeholders to self-serve where appropriate

• Admitted and in good standing in at least one U.S. jurisdiction, with extensive in-house experience supporting go-to-market or commercial teams; law firm background is a plus
• 10+ years of experience drafting and negotiating enterprise commercial agreements across a wide range of deal sizes and structures in a B2B SaaS or cloud environment
• Proven track record supporting fast-moving sales organizations and understanding where deals get stuck
• Demonstrated experience building commercial legal infrastructure, including CLM systems, playbooks, standard form agreements, and enablement materials
• Strong business judgment with a pragmatic, business-forward approach to legal risk
• People management experience, with the ability to develop and grow a team while remaining hands-on as an individual contributor
• A low-ego, roll-up-your-sleeves approach, stepping outside traditional swim lanes when the business needs it and treating every problem, big or small, as your own
• A genuine passion for process improvement, automation, and applying AI tools to legal workflows

• Familiarity with data privacy concepts (GDPR, CCPA) and experience reviewing or negotiating DPAs
• Technical fluency or comfort working alongside engineering and product teams at a developer-focused or infrastructure company
• Experience with CLM platforms (e.g., Docusign IAM, Ironclad or similar), CRM tools, and modern collaboration tools
• Exposure to open source licensing or developer-facing commercial models

• The estimated pay range for this role is $235,000 - $360,000 depending on 1) level and experience and 2) geographic location
• This role is eligible to participate in Temporal's equity plan