General Counsel

Department: Finance/Legal

Reports to: CFO

Percona is a respected thought leader in the open source community. We provide services and software for MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB to open-source users globally. Percona is remote-first and globally dispersed; we have 325 people in almost 50 countries. We offer a collaborative, highly-engaged culture where your ideas are welcome and your voice is heard. The growth and development of our staff is a top priority; we provide funding for training, certifications, conferences, and more. Discover what it means to work with some of the smartest people in the industry, who also know how to have fun and are always willing to lend a helping hand. We offer flexible hours, the ability to work remotely and the amazing experience of working with a multinational team of experts.

Job Summary:

As Corporate Counsel for Percona, you will play a critical role in providing legal guidance and strategic advice to our organization. You will collaborate closely with our executive team, cross-functional teams, and external partners to ensure legal compliance, manage risks, and support our growth initiatives. If you're a pragmatic and business-oriented attorney excited about taking ownership and managing the legal function, this could be the right role for you.

What You Will Do:

• Leading and Managing:

  • Leading and managing the compliance, privacy, and contracts functions, currently a team of 5

  • Responsible for operational planning, budgeting, and staff development

  • Develop strong, trusted relationships with executives in all company departments

  • Provide training to executives, business stakeholders, and staff members on legal topics

• Legal Advisory:

  • Collaborate cross-functionally across the company at every level to identify and address product, regulatory, privacy, and other legal risks and mitigations.

  • Identify and analyze legal risks across the company and devise creative solutions

  • Designing and implementing company policies and procedures to foster legal compliance

  • Advising executives and board members on potential legal risks and solutions to mitigate the risk

• Contract Review and Negotiation:

  • Provide concise and commercially astute counsel to Percona’s Go-to-Market and Product teams

  • Draft, negotiate, and review a broad range of commercial, revenue-generating contracts, including master service agreements and data and technology licensing agreements

  • Support our internal procurement process by reviewing agreements for vendors, sales partners, events employment, real estate and other contracts related to other company initiatives

• Corporate compliance and privacy functions:

  • Act as Privacy Officer of the company, overseeing privacy requirements and processes

  • Manage the company’s privacy and compliance practices, including overseeing external audits and customer compliance requirements

• Corporate Governance:

  • Act as Assistant Security, including documentation for the Board of Directors and legal entity creation and dissolution

  • Provide strategic legal entity advice for a complex organizational structure

• Manage Percona’s IP portfolio, including counselling on trademarks, branding, patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and open-source licenses

• Support continuous improvements of forms, policies, and processes to help streamline and simplify deals and the introduction of future products and services

• Liaise with external counsel and coordinate projects between external counsel and Percona stakeholders

• Partner with the HR function on employment agreements and advises on hiring practices and general labor & employment compliance

• Stay up to date with global regulatory and legal requirements that affect the company’s products, services, and operations

What You Have Done:

• A law degree from an ABA-accredited university

• 8-10+ years of experience practicing law in a corporate setting, with a mix of in-house and law firm experience

• Strong interpersonal and presentation skills, along with the ability to communicate effectively with others at all levels of the organization

• Experience negotiating legal, commercial, and financial agreements with international customers, vendors, and partners

• Knowledge of international personal data and privacy laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, and common compliance standards, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and PCI-DSS.

• Experience with open-source software and FOSS license models

• Experience in technology, SaaS, and commercial transactions

• Skilled at assessing real-world risk and negotiating in fast-paced situations

• A mix of both startup/in-house and law firm experience is ideal

What Will Make You Stand Out:

• Knowledge of the open source software market and experience working with a company that provides professional technical services and open source software

• Understanding the business side of a growing technology company that provides services to international customers

• Experience managing a geographically distributed remote team

• A willingness to take ownership of the process and execute with excellence

• Strong organizational skills and experience managing requests from internal and external stakeholders

Closing:

This is primarily a work-from-home position. The expectation is that you will travel for meetings up to four times per year. Note that your legal agreement will be with Percona Staffing LLC, a USA corporation and a subsidiary of Percona LLC.

Percona is a highly respected thought leader in the global open-source community. Our mission is to Keep Open Source Open. We provide services and software for MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL and MariaDB.

Percona is remote-only and globally dispersed—we have colleagues in more than 40 countries! We offer a collaborative, highly engaged culture where your ideas are welcome and your voice is heard.

Our staff receives generous benefits, including flexible work hours and paid time off, all equipment for your remote office, funds for career development (external training, certifications, conferences), and the opportunity to participate in an equity incentive plan.

If you love the idea of working with a high-growth tech company that is one of the best in the business and known globally as a go-to in the open-source database space, let’s talk.

Why Percona?

At Percona, we believe an open world is a better world. Our mission is to enable everyone to innovate freely, by providing the best open source database software, support, and services. We make databases and applications run better through a unique combination of expertise and open source software built with the community for you. Our technical teams are experts in MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB.

Percona is proud to be a remote-only and globally dispersed workforce – we have colleagues in more than 50 countries! We offer a collaborative, highly-engaged culture where your ideas are welcome and your voice is heard.

Our staff receives generous benefits including flexible work hours and various paid time off programs, all your equipment for your remote office, funds for career development (external training, certifications, conferences), ongoing connectivity allowances, and the opportunity to participate in our equity incentive plan. We also have benefits that support a healthy work/life balance such as The Percona Adventure Team, Work-from-Anywhere, FlowDays, FryDays, and overall flexibility. We also support being socially responsible through our PAVE volunteering program and Women Transforming Technology.

If you love the idea of working with a high-growth tech company that is one of the best in the business and known globally as a leader in the open-source database space, let’s talk!

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