Head of Legal @ AI Chip DeepTech Venture, Dresden / Berlin

Job description

This is an Atlantic portfolio venture. About the Venture We build brain-inspired computing hardware designed to tackle problems that conventional computing handles badly or not at all. Our technology has its roots in leading European research and is now a commercial system, being deployed by research institutions, supercomputing centres and companies internationally. We are a deep-tech company moving from research-led development into a much larger commercial operation. We are scaling our hardware deployments, expanding our international customer base and building the organisation and infrastructure to support the next phase of growth. We recently closed fresh funding, are around 70 employees in size and based out of our Dresden HQ. About the Role This is our first legal hire. Legal currently sits largely with the managing directors. Your mandate is to build the legal function, establish clear decision rights and create the infrastructure that allows the company to scale without unnecessary friction. You will own legal end to end, from corporate and commercial through to export control, IP and product regulation. The remit is broad because we sell sophisticated, regulated hardware internationally and are moving faster than our processes have historically allowed. This is a role for someone who enjoys both the legal and operational sides of the job: not simply answering questions, but building the frameworks, processes and decision-making structures that prevent the same questions from coming up repeatedly. What you'll do Own corporate governance across our German GmbH and US entity: shareholder and board matters, financing rounds, related-party and conflict-of-interest questions. Lead commercial contracting across hardware sales, licensing, research collaborations, cloud and service agreements, and NDAs. Build the templates and playbook so that standard cases can be handled efficiently. Take ownership of export control and dual-use matters, including EU Dual-Use Regulation, German licensing requirements, US export-control exposure, sanctions and restricted-party screening. Lead our cybersecurity and product compliance agenda, including NIS2, the Cyber Resilience Act and related incident-reporting and conformity requirements. Cover product safety and market access for the hardware itself, including CE marking, EMC, RoHS, REACH and product liability. Manage our IP portfolio: patents, freedom to operate, trade secrets, licensing, technology rights and trademarks. Manage compliance obligations connected to public funding, including grant conditions, record keeping and audit readiness. Work with People & Culture on employment matters, including contracts, terminations, employee participation structures, immigration. Data protection and GDPR sit here too. Oversee open-source licence compliance and software supply-chain obligations together with engineering. Build the delegation layer: signing authority, approval thresholds, decision rights and clear ownership, so that routine hiring, procurement and commercial decisions do not automatically converge on the managing directors. Decide what we keep in house and what goes to external counsel, then manage those firms and the associated budget. About You You are comfortable being the only lawyer in the building, and you see that as an opportunity rather than a risk. You enjoy the operational side of legal work as much as the technical side. You are direct, commercially minded and comfortable making judgement calls. You know where your own limits are and are happy to bring in specialists when the question warrants it. Qualified German lawyer (Volljurist), with fluency in EU regulation. In-house experience at a semiconductor, hardware or deep-tech company, ideally in a start-up or scale-up environment rather than exclusively in a large corporate legal department is strongly preferred. Experience with export control and dual-use questions in a business that actually ships internationally, including an understanding of the difference between licensing and per-transaction screening. Comfortable across a wide surface: corporate, commercial, IP, employment and regulatory. You do not need to be the deepest expert in each area, but you need to know what good looks like and when to escalate. You have built structure inside a company before: templates, approval frameworks, signing authority or something equivalent that outlived your involvement. Familiarity with hardware product regulation, CE marking, RoHS and REACH, or with the evolving EU cybersecurity regime is a strong plus. German and English at working fluency, both written and spoken. Based in or willing to relocate to the company's location in either Dresden or Berlin. Why Join You would be shaping the legal function of a company with direct access to the managing directors. The subject matter is unusually interesting: brain-inspired computing, advanced hardware, international technology sales, export-controlled technology, research partnerships and a regulatory environment that is evolving in real time. The work environment is flexible and inclusive, and we offer a competitive salary with relocation support for the right person. If you want to build something meaningful rather than maintain something that already exists, this is that kind of role.