Corporate Counsel Job Chicago area,Illinois USA,IT/Tech

Azul is seeking a Corporate Counsel to join our legal team at a pivotal moment in the company's growth.

The successful candidate will work across all aspects of Azul's business - from commercial transactions and AI governance and emerging technology regulation - partnering closely with engineering, sales, and product. Litigators and other specialists looking to transition to a commercial, in-house role are welcome to apply.

This role can be based anywhere in the US with a strong preference to California.

What You'll Do (aka Responsibilities)

Draft, review, and negotiate a broad range of commercial agreements, including NDAs, software license agreements, SaaS and subscription agreements, vendor and procurement contracts, reseller and channel partner agreements, and strategic partnership arrangements.

Advise on complex commercial deal structures, including usage-based and consumption pricing, overage and true-up mechanics, minimum commitments, renewal pricing tiers, and multi-year enterprise arrangements.

Demonstrated fluency with AI tools in a legal context (e.g., Claude Cowork, or comparable assistants), such as using AI to improve drafting quality, review speed, or issue-spotting, and iterating on prompts and evaluating AI output critically.

Counsel business teams across a range of legal topics, including intellectual property, open source software licensing (with particular attention to OpenJDK, GPLv2 with Classpath Exception, and related ecosystem considerations), contributor license agreements, corporate governance, commercial law, data privacy (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and emerging state privacy laws), export controls and sanctions (including OFAC, BIS Entity List, and EU regimes), and product security regulation (including the EU Cyber Resilience Act obligations).

Advise on the development, deployment, and governance of artificial intelligence tools - both AI features Azul builds into its products and internal AI systems (including agentic AI tools) used across engineering, sales, and back-office functions. This includes drafting acceptable use policies, reviewing AI vendor and model provider agreements, evaluating AI-generated code disclosure and provenance obligations, navigating AI-related customer questionnaires, and tracking developments under the EU AI Act, U.S. federal and state AI regulation, and related frameworks.

Partner with engineering and security teams on policies governing AI-assisted development, including code attribution, license audit readiness, and compliance with upstream contributor requirements (e.g., OCA-governed projects).

Support incident response, regulatory inquiries, and customer audits.

Collaborate with the legal team to develop and implement best practices and policies in the areas of contracting, licensing, AI governance, and compliance; contribute to playbooks, templates, and self-service resources that scale legal across the business.

Partner with Deal Desk, Sales, and Finance to accelerate deal velocity while managing risk, particularly as deal flow grows.

Availability for early morning and late-evening calls with international opposing counsel, customers, and overseas teams across EMEA and APAC.

What You'll Bring (aka Experience, Skills, Qualifications)

8+ years of experience in the responsibilities above or a similar in-house role; experience at an enterprise software, open source, or infrastructure software company is a strong plus.

J.D. degree and active license in California.

Working knowledge of open-source licensing models and their commercial implications.

Familiarity with AI/ML concepts sufficient to issue-spot on output ownership, indemnification, and agentic system risks; willingness to develop deeper expertise as the field evolves.

Ability to work closely with all business units (engineering, product, marketing, sales, finance, human resources, and information technology) and translate legal concepts for technical and non-technical audiences.

Attention to detail, ability to work independently and as part of a team, and excellent organizational skills - including the ability to manage a high-volume contracts pipeline without dropping threads.

Willing…