Senior Counsel

About Goodfire Goodfire is a research company using interpretability to understand, learn from, and design AI systems. Our mission is to build the next generation of safe and powerful AI—not by scaling alone, but by understanding the intelligence we're building. Scaling has proven powerful, but today's approach is fundamentally limited: we can't meaningfully understand, debug, or shape what models learn. Every engineering discipline has been gated by fundamental science and AI is at that inflection point now. We're advancing the science of how AI systems actually work. Treating models as black boxes is an unnecessary handicap—we have access to the structures inside them, and understanding those structures lets us steer what models learn, make them safer and more useful, and extract the vast knowledge they contain. Our goal is to make AI that can be understood, debugged, and shaped like software. Goodfire is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco with a team of the world’s top interpretability researchers and engineers from organizations like OpenAI and DeepMind. We're backed by over $200M from B Capital, Menlo Ventures, Lightspeed, Eric Schmidt, and others. About the role We're hiring a Senior Counsel to be Goodfire's first in-house lawyer. You'll build the legal foundation of our company, wear a ton of hats, and be the person who defines our approach to interpretability and AI security contracts and regulations. You'll need a strong understanding of AI security and interpretability to inform your decisions on licensing, data rights, and regulation that are critical to our business. These are rapidly changing fields with minimal established playbooks, and you'll be leading the way in figuring it out. You'll own everything under the legal umbrella (e.g., contract negotiations, employment agreements, fundraising, board matters). You must be comfortable being the only lawyer in the room, and humble enough to handle both the decisions that will define our business and the unglamorous work that comes with building something from scratch. What you'll bring Required experience • JD and active membership in at least one US state bar (California preferred). • 6+ years across law firm and in-house roles at technology companies, including leading enterprise software deals. • Excellent judgment and experience with AI/SaaS licensing, data rights, liability, and forward deployed contracts. • Strong grasp of AI, particularly AI security and interpretability. • Willingness and humility to own anything legal-related yourself, big or small. Preferred qualifications • Experience building a legal function from scratch. • AI lab or AI/ML product experience: model licensing, training data rights, open-source releases. • Experience working with healthcare or life sciences customers and related regulations. Our values Goodfire is looking for individuals who embody our values and share our deep commitment to making interpretability accessible. We are building a team first and foremost. Put mission and team first All we do is in service of our mission. We trust each other, deeply care about the success of the organization, and choose to put our team above ourselves. Improve constantly We are constantly looking to improve every piece of the business. We proactively critique ourselves and others in a kind and thoughtful way that translates to practical improvements in the organization. We are pragmatic and consistently implement the obvious fixes that work. Take ownership and initiative There are no bystanders here. We proactively identify problems and take full responsibility over getting a strong result. We are self-driven, own our mistakes, and feel deep responsibility over what we’re building. Action today We have a small amount of time to do something incredibly hard and meaningful. The pace and intensity of the organization is high. If we can take action today or tomorrow, we will choose to do it today. Where we work We are hiring for this position in our San Francisco office who’d be onsite 5 days a week. What we offer This role offers market competitive salary, equity, and competitive benefits. The expected salary range for this position is $200,000 to $400,000. This role reports to our CEO. Most importantly, you'll have the opportunity to join a vital mission at an important point in its trajectory — we are developing groundbreaking technology with a world-class team on the critical path to ensuring a safe and beneficial future for humanity. If you want to do your life’s work with us, even if you believe you do not meet every single requirement, apply now.