Sr. Director of Commercial and Legal Affairs
About Backblaze
Backblaze is a public company that makes storing and using data astonishingly easy. When our founding team got together, they committed to helping people save their data. Today, the Backblaze Storage Cloud provides a foundational platform around the world for a broad community of developers, IT generalists, entrepreneurs, and individuals who seek the easy, affordable, trusted solutions we provide.
We have managed to nurture a team-oriented culture with amazingly low turnover. Our approach is guided by honesty, transparency, and a commitment to doing the right thing. Our customers are happy, and so are our coworkers: in the most recent “Great Place to Work” survey, 97% of our team rated Backblaze as “a great place to work.” Check out what our employees are saying on Glassdoor!
About the Role
We are seeking a Sr. Director of Commercial and Legal Affairs to lead and oversee Backblaze’s commercial, privacy, and product legal functions. This is a people leader role that will serve as a strategic business partner across Sales, Product, Engineering, Security, and Compliance.
The ideal candidate is a highly experienced commercial lawyer with a strong track record of drafting and negotiating complex technology transactions, including enterprise and strategic partnership deals. This role also requires fluency in privacy and data protection issues and hands-on experience advising product and engineering teams throughout the product lifecycle.
This position will play a critical role in enabling scalable growth while thoughtfully managing legal and regulatory risk as Backblaze continues to expand globally. This role includes people management responsibilities and will lead, mentor, and develop attorney(s) and legal professional(s) supporting commercial, privacy, and product work.
This role reports to the Head of Legal & Compliance and is fully remote (US-based).
What You’ll Do
Commercial Leadership and Deal Execution
- Lead the company’s commercial contracting function, serving as the primary legal owner for complex, high-value, and strategic transactions.
- Draft, review, and negotiate a wide range of sophisticated commercial agreements, including enterprise SaaS agreements, MSAs, SOWs, partnership and channel agreements, reseller agreements, professional services agreements, consulting agreements, and related technology transactions.
- Act as the senior escalation point for complex or high-risk negotiations, providing strategic guidance to Sales, Business Development, and executive stakeholders.
- Ensure commercial terms align with Backblaze’s business objectives, risk tolerance, and long-term growth strategy.
Privacy and Data Protection
- Provide practical, business-oriented legal advice on global privacy and data protection matters, including GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable data protection regimes.
- Oversee and support the development, negotiation, and maintenance of data protection agreements, privacy terms, and related contractual frameworks.
- Partner closely with Security, Compliance, and Product teams to assess privacy risk and ensure data protection obligations are integrated into business processes and products.
Product and AI Counseling
- Serve as a trusted legal advisor to Product and Engineering teams, advising on product design, feature development, and launches from inception through release.
- Counsel on issues related to data use, AI and machine learning, intellectual property, open source, and regulatory considerations impacting product development.
- Advise on the commercial, privacy, and contractual terms for AI features and AI-driven workloads, and help the business adopt AI responsibly and at speed.
- Help teams identify and mitigate legal risk while enabling innovation and speed.
Process, Playbooks, and Scale
- Lead the development and continuous improvement of commercial playbooks, templates, policies, and negotiation frameworks to support efficient scaling.
- Optimize contracting processes to improve speed, consistency, and quality while maintaining appropriate controls, including through the use of AI-enabled contracting and legal tooling.
- Partner with Legal Operations to enhance tooling, workflows, and reporting related to commercial and privacy matters.
- Stay current on legal and regulatory developments relevant to cloud services, SaaS, privacy, AI, and technology transactions.
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Act as a trusted partner to Sales, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, Security, and other cross-functional teams.
- Provide training and guidance to internal stakeholders on contracting best practices, privacy requirements, and risk awareness.
- Collaborate closely with other Legal and Compliance leaders to ensure alignment across the broader legal function.
People Leadership and Team Development
- Lead and manage legal professionals supporting commercial, privacy, and product counseling functions.
- Provide mentorship, coaching, and performance management to support professional growth and high-quality legal work.
- Set clear priorities, allocate work effectively, and ensure consistent, high-impact legal support across the business.
- Partner with members of the Legal & Compliance team, as well as senior leadership, on team planning, resourcing, and process improvements as the function scales.
The Right Fit
- Deep experience drafting and negotiating complex commercial agreements, including enterprise customer and strategic partnership transactions.
- Strong understanding of SaaS business models, cloud services, and technology transactions.
- Solid working knowledge of global privacy and data protection laws, with the ability to translate legal requirements into practical business guidance.
- Demonstrated experience providing product counseling to product and engineering teams.
- Fluency in the legal issues raised by AI, including AI in products, AI-assisted contracting, and AI governance, or a strong interest and demonstrated ability to build depth in this area quickly.
- Excellent business judgment and the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-moving environment.
- Proven ability to lead, influence, and collaborate across functions and levels of seniority.
- Clear and effective communicator who can translate complex legal issues into concise, business-friendly advice.
- Hands-on, pragmatic, and solutions-oriented, with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.
- Prior experience managing, mentoring, and developing legal team members in an in-house environment.
Qualifications
- J.D. degree and active U.S. bar membership in good standing.
- 10 or more years of relevant legal experience, with substantial experience negotiating and leading complex technology transactions, including enterprise SaaS agreements and strategic partnerships.
- Meaningful in-house legal experience, preferably at a high-growth technology or SaaS company.
- Strong experience supporting enterprise sales motions, partner and channel relationships, and global commercial operations.
- Working knowledge of global privacy and data protection laws, with experience advising on data protection obligations in commercial agreements and product offerings.
- Experience providing practical legal guidance to product and engineering teams throughout the product development lifecycle.
- Familiarity with, or genuine willingness to develop fluency in, AI and its legal, privacy, and commercial implications, and comfort using AI tools to work more efficiently.
- Prior experience managing, mentoring, or developing legal team members, or demonstrated readiness to take on people management responsibilities.
Backblaze Perks
- Great healthcare benefits (100% healthcare premiums for family)
- Competitive compensation
- 401K matching
- RSU equity awards
- Flexible vacation policy
- Maternity & paternity leave
- MacBook Pro to use for work plus a generous stipend to personalize your workstation
- Childcare bonus
- Commuter benefits
- Culture that supports a healthy work-life balance
The base pay range for this position is $210,000 - $264,000.
At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. That is 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, socioeconomic 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.
