Legal Operations Lead

The Solana Foundation is a non-profit based in Zug, Switzerland, dedicated to the adoption, decentralization, and security of the Solana network. Solana is a high performance blockchain that can deliver a fast and friendly user experience, without sacrificing security. The Solana Foundation is working to realize a world where individuals own their data, use permissionless networks, and transfer information and value freely around the world. We are looking for talented people who are willing to jump right in and use their expertise to help the ecosystem build.

The Role

The Solana Foundation is hiring a Senior Legal Operations Manager who is as comfortable configuring a CLM system or building an AI-powered workflow as drafting or reviewing a non-disclosure agreement or commercial contract. This is a builder role: you will own the legal team's technology stack, design and implement automated workflows, and drive measurable efficiency across the full legal lifecycle.

You bring deep paralegal and legal operations experience, sharp analytical ability, and a technologist's instinct for automation. l. You've shipped process improvements, not just proposed them. You're energized by the challenge of applying AI and modern tooling to a legal function that is still largely manual in most organizations. You can operate independently at the level of a junior associate — spotting issues, structuring analysis, and exercising sound judgment — while knowing when to escalate. You will report directly to the Chief Legal Officer and operate with a high degree of autonomy.

What Makes this Role Different

This is not a traditional paralegal seat. You'll spend roughly half your time on legal operations, tooling, and process design — and half on substantive legal support. If you've only ever worked in a traditional law firm or in-house legal team doing document management and calendaring, this probably isn't the right fit. We're looking for someone who:

• Has strong opinions about what good legal tech looks like, and can back them up

• Treats AI tools as multipliers, not novelties, and uses them daily — with a clear-eyed view of where they fail and how to build guardrails around those failures

• Gets excited about automation and reaches for tools like Zapier, Make, or custom integrations before doing something manually twice

• Has the substantive legal grounding and raw analytical horsepower to build tools attorneys actually trust and to identify issues attorneys might miss

• Can read and mark up routine contracts, structure a legal memo, or analyze a novel legal issue without waiting to be told what to look for in the first instance
  

Core Responsibilities

Legal Operations & Technology (primary focus)

• Own, configure, and continuously improve the legal team's CLM platform (Ironclad); go beyond administration — redesign workflows, build approval logic, and surface data insights

• Identify, evaluate, and implement AI and legal tech tools across contract review, drafting assistance, compliance monitoring, and matter tracking — including designing appropriate human review for AI-generated outputs and maintaining a clear audit trail

• Build and maintain automations that eliminate repetitive legal tasks — intake forms, routing, reminders, status updates — using tools like Zapier, Make, or similar

• Develop and document Standard Operating Procedures for all key legal workflows; make the implicit explicit

• Create dashboards and reporting that give the CLO and leadership visibility into contract status, cycle times, and compliance posture

• Stay current on emerging legal AI tools and proactively bring recommendations to the team with a realistic assessment of risk, reliability, and integration cost
  

Substantive Legal Support

• Draft and redline commercial agreements including vendor contracts, NDAs, grant agreements, and partnership terms, both from templates or from scratch

• Maintain and improve the contract template library; ensure templates reflect current standard positions

• Own and manage the KYC/KYB verification processes and compliance tracking from end to end

• Assist with corporate governance (including preparing materials for board meetings) and periodic reporting

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Act as the connective tissue between legal and the business — translating legal requirements into workflows that non-lawyers can follow

• Partner with finance, compliance, and grants teams to streamline shared processes

• Train and enable other teams to self-serve on routine legal tasks through well-designed tools and documentation
  

What We’re Looking For

Must Haves

• 3–7 years of combined legal operations and/or paralegal experience; candidates at the lower end of that range must demonstrate exceptional technical and analytical ability

• Hands-on experience with a CLM platform (Ironclad strongly preferred); you've configured workflows, not just submitted requests through one.

• Experience with automation tools (Zapier, Make, n8n, or equivalent) and comfort with no-code / low-code environments

• Strong command of contract fundamentals: structure, defined terms, reps & warranties, indemnification, limitation of liability, termination

• Genuine intellectual curiosity about Web3, blockchain, or digital assets — enough to engage substantively, ask good questions, and get up to speed fast without hand-holding

• Collaborative, positive and team-oriented with a proven record of building strong relationships, both internally and externally, at all levels and across different teams and functions.

• Ability to work independently and manage multiple projects simultaneously

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• High analytical ceiling: you identify the question behind the question, structure problems before solving them, and are honest about what you don't know
  

Nice-to-haves

• Experience at a crypto-native company, Web3 foundation, high-growth startup, or financial institution

• Familiarity with grant programs and grant agreement management

• Exposure to data tools (Airtable, Notion databases, or similar) used for legal matter and compliance tracking

• Experience supporting a lean legal team where you had to build infrastructure from scratch

• Comfort with basic scripting (Python, JavaScript) or API calls — not a requirement, but a strong differentiator (for integrations)

• Sophisticated, daily user of AI tools for legal work, with a point of view grounded in real experience: where they accelerate work, where they hallucinate or miss nuance, and how to build review processes that catch failures before they matter