descript

Senior Counsel

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At a Glance

Location
San Francisco, California, United States
Experience
7–10 years
Compensation
salary range for this role is $225,000–$275,000. Final offer amounts will car
Posted
2026-03-16T16:56:08-04:00

Key Requirements

Domain Knowledge

  • Engineering
  • Legal
  • Regulatory
  • SaaS

Requirements

AI & product counsel

: Advise product and engineering teams on legal implications of AI/ML features, including model licensing, training data usage, generated content rights, and emerging AI regulations

Compliance & risk management

: Track and support the company's compliance posture across key frameworks (SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA). Monitor regulatory developments affecting AI/ML products, flag emerging risks to leadership, and coordinate cross-functional responses. Own the compliance calendar: renewals, certifications, audits, and regulatory filings.

Corporate governance

:Support board minutes, equity plan administration, and consent actions

Compensation & Benefits

Our headquarters

are located in the Mission District of San Francisco, CA. We're hiring for a mix of remote roles and hybrid roles.  For those who are remote, we have a handful of opportunities throughout the year for in person collaboration.  For our hybrid roles, we're flexible, and you're an adult—we don't expect or mandate that you're in the office every day. We do believe there are valuable and serendipitous moments of discovery and collaboration that come from working together in person.

Descript is an equal opportunity workplace—we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We believe in actively building a team rich in diverse backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to better allow our employees, products, and community to thrive.

Responsibilities

We're hiring our

first in-house attorney

— and with that comes a rare opportunity to build Descript's legal function from the ground up. As Senior Counsel, you'll own most of Descript's day-to-day legal operations, with outside counsel supporting complex matters. This is a high-autonomy role.

You'll be the go-to legal advisor across the company, partnering with sales, product, finance, and engineering teams on everything from commercial deals to AI product counsel to employment matters. You won't just run legal — you'll define how it operates, building the processes, templates, and frameworks that scale with the company. If you thrive as a pragmatic generalist who can move fast, exercise independent judgment, and wants to shape a legal function rather than inherit one, this role is for you.

Commercial contracts

About the Company

Mission-driven

— We're democratizing video and audio creation for millions of creators

The base salary range for this role is $225,000–$275,000. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise, location, and may vary from the amount above.

Descript is building a simple, intuitive, fully-powered editing tool for video and audio — an editing tool built for the age of AI. We are a team of 150 and the backing of some of the world's greatest investors (

OpenAI