IP and Data Privacy Counsel

About Us

Our mission is to raise AGI with the richness of human intelligence - curious, witty, imaginative, and full of unexpected brilliance.

Surge was founded by engineers and researchers who dreamed of building the next generation of AI. Our platform powers the most capable models in the world, in partnership with the AI models you use every day.

At Surge, we believe the path to AGI isn’t just about scaling compute - it’s about embracing the unlimited ceiling of human intelligence and creativity in the data that shapes these systems. Our platform combines elite human expertise with cutting-edge tools for scalable oversight, from building rich RL environments to conducting rigorous evaluations that go beyond benchmarks. We’ve run a profitable business from day one without raising venture funding.

The Role

As IP and Data Privacy Counsel at Surge, you’ll be our in-house expert on the legal questions at the center of our business: how data is collected and handled, who owns the data and content that AI systems are built on, and how our work fits into privacy and IP law that is changing quickly. You’ll be an early member of a new legal team and work directly with our General Counsel.

This role is ideal for a lawyer who wants to work close to the frontier of AI, is comfortable when the law is unsettled, and wants to build programs rather than inherit them.

What You’ll Do

• Advise on data privacy across US and EU/UK law, and build and maintain our privacy program, including policies, notices, data processing agreements, and our approach to cross-border transfers.

• Handle privacy filings and registrations, and respond to regulator, customer, and contributor inquiries.

• Advise on copyright, trademark, and other IP questions that come up in AI data work, including how IP flows between Surge, our customers, our vendors and our contributors.

• Track litigation, legislation, and regulation on AI, data, and IP, and act as an early warning indicator for any issues that impact our business.

• Work with our corporate counsel to set IP and data terms in customer and vendor agreements.

• Partner with product, engineering, security, and HR on new data flows and features.

• Manage outside counsel, and decide what we handle in-house.

• Write guidance that people can actually use.
  

What We’re Looking for

• 5-10 years of experience as a lawyer, at a law firm (mid-level associate or higher) or in-house.

• Hands-on experience with US and EU/UK privacy laws, including filings, compliance programs, and following new legislation.

• Strong working knowledge of trademark and copyright, and of current case law, especially the cases shaping how AI companies use and produce content.

• Clear, practical communication. You give a recommendation and explain the risk in plain language, not a memo that avoids a call.

• Comfortable with ambiguity. You can structure a question nobody has answered yet and keep moving.

• Able to work with engineers, researchers, and business teams who want to move fast, and find a path that holds up legally.

• Genuinely curious about AI and how models are built and evaluated.

• Willing to do the work yourself, from drafting to filings, while the team is small, and interested in leading and developing new talent as we grow.