Member of Operations Staff, Legal & Commercial Operations

About

Edison Scientific builds and commercializes AI agents for science. Scientific discovery moves too slowly, and autonomous AI agents are how we intend to fix that. We're assembling a team of top researchers and engineers across AI and biology to build an AI scientist.

Role

As a Member of Operations Staff, Legal & Commercial Operations at Edison Scientific, you will sit at the intersection of operations and the legal function. We are looking for someone with legal training and commercial contracting experience who is excited to apply that judgment across deals, operations, and company-building work. You will report to our Head of Operations and partner closely with teams across Edison to strengthen our operational backbone as we scale. We expect the role to begin with meaningful legal and deal-support work, especially around commercial contracts, but to expand quickly into broader company-building projects across operations, finance, people, and business systems. This is not a traditional in-house counsel role. It is best suited for someone who wants to use legal judgment as one part of a broader operating toolkit.

This role is on-site at our San Francisco office in the Dogpatch neighborhood. We will also consider strong candidates based in New York City. San Francisco is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Support our commercial/deal team on customer and partnership agreements

• Build and run operational processes that make life easier as Edison scales

• Execute on cross-functional operations projects from compensation policy work to financial forecasting to due diligence

• Partner with product and engineering teams on legal and regulatory issues as needed

• Maintain Edison's library of templates (NDAs, vendor agreements, consulting agreements, offer letters, separation agreements) and own the internal playbook on which terms to push back on and which to concede

• Manage our outside counsel relationships

Qualifications

• JD from an accredited law school

• Active bar admission in California or New York

• 3+ years of legal practice in BigLaw, in-house, or a combination of both

• Hands-on experience with commercial contracts, customer agreements, tech transactions, licensing, life sciences partnerships, or similar deal work

• Strong business judgment and comfort balancing legal risk with speed, pragmatism, and company priorities

• Demonstrated interest in work beyond the legal function

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Comfort working in a high-growth startup environment with ambiguity, urgency, and shifting priorities

Bonus points for

• Experience working with life sciences, pharma, biotech, AI or software customers

• Experience in operations, consulting, finance or another business-side role

• A prior life or side path in operations, consulting, or business — second degree (MBA, MPP), pre-law-school career, or operations-adjacent projects.

Salary

$220,000 - $320,000

Why join us?

• Competitive salary and equity

• Full healthcare coverage — we pay 100% of premiums for you and your dependents

• Support for growing families, including a yearly new parent stipend and fertility coverage through Carrot

• 401(k) company matching

• $300 health and wellness benefit per quarter

• Lunch is on us every day you're in the office, and dinner is on us when you're working late

• Regular team offsites and company events

• A fast-moving, mission-driven culture where smart people do their best work and actually enjoy doing it