The Team: 

As Assistant General Counsel, you will lead a team rebuild of commercial attorneys. You will negotiate and draft contracts covering a large range of subject matter, as your team will be responsible for all of Upstart’s third party contracts other than those with its financiers/investors.  In addition, your team will support the lending partnerships sales team at Upstart.

How you’ll make an impact

Your team will support Upstart’s sales team on all of their lending partnership work while also negotiating/drafting/structuring commercial contracts for every third party engaged by anyone at Upstart.

Minimum Qualifications 

• 10+ years of experience practicing commercial transactions, including representing an in-house sales team. 
• Experience managing a team of lawyers and legal professionals. 
• Balances work as an individual contributor and as a people manager.  
• Prior law firm and in-house experience. 
• Excellent contract drafting and negotiation skills
• Expertise in contract law
• Experience placing a lien on an asset and perfecting the lien

Preferred Qualifications

• Banking and/or fintech commercial legal experience strongly preferred.
• 3+ years of experience working at a  highly-regarded national law firm.
• 3+ years of in-house experience
• Familiarity with data privacy issues
• Familiarity with true lender and true sale issues
• Admission to the CA or NY Bar

Position location This role is available in the following locations: Remote 

Time zone requirements The team operates on the East/West coast time zones. 

Travel requirements As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

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The Team

As a Lead Legal Commercial Counsel, Lending Partnerships at Upstart, you’ll be joining a close-knit, collaborative team of attorneys who work in a fast-paced innovative environment.  You will act as a key point person for our Lending Partnerships business, while also handling a broad range of commercial, business development, and transactional legal matters across the entire organization. This position is unique because it offers exposure to new legal issues and the opportunity to work on diverse tasks such as contract drafting and negotiation and a number of projects that will arise as we continue to scale. Experience drafting and negotiating complex B2B SaaS agreements is required. Experience drafting and negotiating commercial agreements involving financial services and/or technology licenses in a heavily regulated environment is a big plus.

If you have the confidence, creativity, and flexibility to tackle ambiguity and craft innovative legal arrangements with a bias towards action, this could be the right opportunity for you.

How you’ll make an impact:

• Build a deep understanding of our Lending Partnerships (LP) business and collaborate effectively with internal clients to understand and support their goals;
• Act as a key member of our LP commercial team to provide legal and strategic advice to assess and mitigate legal risks while driving business growth;
• Review, draft, and negotiate a wide variety of commercial agreements, including purchase agreements, loan sale agreements, servicing agreements, master services agreements, software licenses, SOWs, and other agreements;
• Engage with numerous internal stakeholders to escalate and resolve issues quickly and efficiently during negotiations; and
• Develop processes and templates for commercial transactions to support and drive rapidly growing business.

What we’re looking for: 

• Minimum Requirements:
• J.D. degree with solid academic credentials and a state bar membership (NY or CA preferred);
• 7+ years of experience at a law firm in a transactional practice area (ideally technology transactions, capital markets, or similar) or some combination of in-house/law firm experience with a focus on transactional/commercial matters;
• Demonstrated ability to act as legal point during intense/complex negotiations and to work effectively with sales leadership to manage expectations and goals;
• Experience reviewing, drafting and negotiating complex B2B SaaS agreements, preferably in a regulated environment or while licensing into a regulated environment;
• Not just an issue‑spotter but an issue‑solver, with a “can‑do” mindset, a habit of moving quickly, and ownership to drive matters from start to finish; and
• An exceptionally high bar for your own work product and a desire to work with teammates who operate at a similarly high standard.
  
  
• Preferred Requirements:
• 10+ years of experience, ideally with prior in‑house roles on high‑impact legal teams at a fintech, financial services, or technology company; start‑up or high‑growth company experience is a plus;
• Experience leading and closing complex commercial negotiations (for example, high value purchase agreements or strategic partnership deals);
• Genuine curiosity about how Upstart’s business works and a desire to jump in cross‑functionally to help teams solve problems, even when the work sits outside traditional legal lanes;
• Over time, a desire to mentor and collaborate with other members of the legal team, and to help build efficient, scalable processes as we grow and evolve;
• Strong communication skills with a demonstrated ability to translate complex legal and risk concepts into clear, actionable guidance for non‑lawyers; 
• Eagerness to dive into new products, AI and data issues, and unfamiliar areas of law with a solutions‑oriented, low‑ego mindset; 
• Entrepreneurial drive that sees ambiguity as opportunity, and obstacles as chances to build new solutions; and
• A strong sense of ownership, enthusiasm for technology, enjoyment in being continually challenged, and the ability to demonstrate strong judgment in ambiguous situations.

Position location This role is available in the following locations: Remote

Travel requirements As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

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The Role

As the Assistant General Counsel (Director), Capital Markets Legal at Upstart, you will work with counterparties across Upstart including members of the product, operations, compliance, accounting, tax, treasury and finance teams. You will work on bilateral deals, small club deals, broadly syndicated deals and everything in between. 

Upstart’s capital markets legal team is at the forefront of creating innovative deal structures that drive our business forward. We negotiate deals that push the envelope on deal terms in a thoughtful, strategic manner. By partnering with the capital markets business team, we exert a tremendous impact on the overall amount of funding that Upstart is able to obtain each year.

How you’ll make an impact

• Partner closely with Upstart’s capital markets team to structure securitization transactions (including pass-throughs and asset-backed securitizations), complex purchase and sale agreement structures and other liquidity arrangements 
• Review, draft and negotiate a variety of transactional documents opposite sophisticated institutional investors, including asset managers, private equity funds, hedge funds and pension funds
• Influence and marshall colleagues outside of the legal team and external parties to drive deals or projects to completion.  Represent the legal team in high-level discussions with external parties, including outside counsel, auditors, regulators, and industry associations.
• Manage a team of five attorneys, some of whom are very senior. Anticipate and unblock obstacles for the team’s work.
• Create internal education on a variety of legal risks.

Minimum Qualifications 

• J.D. degree with solid academic credentials and a state bar membership
• 12 years of work experience, including both large law firm and in-house experience (in structured finance, debt finance or similar)
• Self-starter who is comfortable working in a fast-moving environment with competing priorities and possesses a “can-do” attitude
• Experienced in drafting and negotiating sophisticated transactional documents
• Strong communication skills with a demonstrated ability to effectively and proactively provide quick, concise, and practical legal advice
• Eager to develop expertise in new or unfamiliar products and areas of law
• Team player – no egos
• Prior experience managing a team of lawyers

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience at a fintech company focused on lending /credit markets
• CA or NY bar membership
• Proven ability to develop scalable processes and procedures

Position location This role is available in the following locations: Remote 

Time zone requirements The team operates on the East/West coast time zones

Travel requirements As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

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The Team

As a Commercial Lawyer at Upstart, you will join a commercial legal team that is a strategic partner to the business, sitting at the intersection of cutting‑edge technology, product, and go‑to‑market execution. We structure and negotiate high‑impact commercial deals with partners and vendors that don’t just protect the company, but unlock revenue, accelerate product adoption, and deepen critical partnerships. By working hand‑in‑hand with Sales, Procurement, Product, and Finance, we drive clarity on risk, craft creative solutions to get complex deals over the finish line, and help shape how Upstart shows up in the market with our counterparties. This role will primarily support commercial legal work, with the opportunity to flex into supporting our Lending Partnerships team for a meaningful portion of time. It’s a chance to operate at a critical cross‑section of Upstart’s business, driving both commercial execution and the partnerships that power our AI lending platform.

How you’ll make an impact

• Serve as commercial counsel for vendor and general commercial contracts across Upstart - from inception to execution - including SaaS, data, auto dealer software, and other third‑party agreements, and provide practical, risk‑aligned guidance that keeps deals moving;
• Build a deep understanding of Upstart’s products and vendor ecosystem, and collaborate closely with Procurement, Third‑Party Risk Management, Information Security, Product, Finance, and other internal clients to understand and support their goals;
• Review, draft, and negotiate a wide variety of commercial agreements (including master service agreements, software licenses, SOWs, data protection agreements, professional services agreements, and other procurement contracts), using playbooks and templates while spotting when bespoke structuring is required;
• Drive efficient deal flow by triaging and managing tickets through tools like Zip and Ironclad, escalating issues to the right stakeholders, and helping streamline intake, approvals, and closing processes; and
• Help build and continuously improve the commercial legal function at Upstart by creating scalable playbooks, templates, and training for Procurement and business teams.

Minimum Qualifications

• J.D. degree with solid academic credentials and an active state bar membership (NY or CA preferred);
• 5+ years of experience in a transactional practice at a law firm and/or in‑house, with a focus on technology and commercial contracts (SaaS, data, and other vendor agreements);
• Experience reviewing, drafting, and negotiating complex SaaS and other technology/data agreements, ideally in a regulated industry or when contracting with regulated financial institutions;
• Ability to act as a negotiator on fast‑moving, complex deals, combining strong analytical judgment with high EQ to build consensus with internal and external stakeholders on tricky issues under timing pressure;
• Comfort working with privacy, security, and data‑use terms (including DPAs and information security exhibits), and collaborating with subject‑matter experts to resolve issues efficiently;
• Not just an issue‑spotter but an issue‑solver, with a “can‑do” mindset, a habit of moving quickly, and ownership to drive matters from start to finish; and
• Holds an exceptionally high bar for their own work product and seeks to work with teammates who operate at a similarly high standard.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior in‑house experience on high‑impact legal teams at a fintech, financial services, or technology company; start‑up or high‑growth company experience is a plus;
• Experience leading and closing complex commercial negotiations (for example, strategic SaaS, data, or infrastructure vendor deals);
• Genuine curiosity about how Upstart’s business works and a desire to jump in cross‑functionally to help teams solve problems, even when the work sits outside traditional legal lanes;
• Over time, a desire to mentor and collaborate with other members of the legal team, and to help build efficient, scalable processes as we grow and evolve;
• Strong communication skills with a demonstrated ability to translate complex legal and risk concepts into clear, actionable guidance for non‑lawyers; 
• Eagerness to dive into new products, AI and data issues, and unfamiliar areas of law with a solutions‑oriented, low‑ego mindset; and
• Entrepreneurial drive who sees ambiguity as opportunity, and obstacles as chances to build new solutions.

Position location This role is available in the following locations: Remote 

Time zone requirements The team operates on the East & West coast time zones. 

Travel requirements As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

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