About Dust

We're creating a new AI operating system that has the potential to change the way companies operate. Our mission at Dust is to transform how work gets done by letting any team and employee shape the exact agents they need to accelerate their work.

With 70%+ weekly active users, people stick with Dust as much as they do with Slack and Notion. We already are a core part of their jobs.

We're at an exciting stage of our journey and growing fast. We're serving great customers like Cursor, Clay, Whatnot, and Persona, and aim to 5x our growth by the end of 2026.

Dust is a Sequoia-backed company with an experienced and determined team of optimists (coming from companies like Stripe and OpenAI) that likes to focus on users, getting great things done by shipping fast, and doesn’t take itself too seriously while doing so.

Summary

As Dust's Legal Counsel, you'll be the architect of our legal infrastructure during a critical hyper-growth phase. You'll build the Legal function from the ground up, serving as an integral thought partner to leadership while establishing scalable legal processes that support our ambitious revenue growth trajectory of x5 this year.

This is a hands-on role that combines strategic legal guidance with operational excellence. You'll work cross-functionally with Sales, GTM, Operations, and People teams to drive deal velocity, risk management, and legal discipline across our Paris and San Francisco operations while navigating the complex AI and privacy landscape.

Our culture

• Product-First: Unlike others focused on building foundation models, we're laser-focused on creating delightful product experiences with existing LLMs. Think “No GPUs before PMF”.

• Small, High-Impact Team: Join a team of alumni from Stripe, Square, OpenAI, and other top tech companies. We're intentionally keeping our team small and mighty – every individual has massive scope and impact.

• Transparency & Collaboration: Our repository is open source, and we leverage serendipity between team members. We believe the best ideas emerge when the team shares information and insights openly.

• Proactive Problem-Solving: If you see something broken, fix it without waiting for permission. We don't wait for solutions - we create them.

• Ship to Learn: We move fast and learn from real user feedback.

• Intellectual Humility: We value strong convictions balanced with open-mindedness. Team members confidently advocate for their ideas while remaining receptive to new perspectives and evidence that might change their minds. If new data emerges, we adapt quickly.

What you’ll do

Drive commercial contracting

• Review, draft, and negotiate a wide range of agreements including SaaS (cloud and on-prem), DPA, channel, partnership, and vendor contracts

• Partner closely with the sales and revenue teams to drive deals to close

• Deliver creative, risk-based solutions that unlock revenue and protect the business

• Handle disputes with partners when needed and manage partner relationships, including zero data retention policies with AI labs

Partner on data, privacy, and AI

• Provide pragmatic legal advice on GDPR, international data transfers, CCPA, and other global privacy frameworks

• Advise cross-functional teams on the legal implications of AI in product development and go-to-market strategy

• Help set a scalable, forward-looking approach to AI and privacy governance

• Navigate emerging AI regulations across EU and US markets as we serve increasingly regulated customers (finance, healthcare, telecom)

Scale legal as a business enabler

• Work with stakeholders across the company to solve legal questions in real-time with a builder mindset

• Improve and maintain scalable legal templates, playbooks, and training materials

• Help design and implement a self-serve legal portal and processes to support a fast-scaling global team

• Build the foundation for Dust's legal function as we grow from 50 to 150+ employees

Requirements

• Qualified lawyer (Europe-based): You're a qualified legal professional with 7+ years PQE (Post-Qualification Experience), ideally with both top-tier law firm and in-house startup experience

• Commercial contracts expert: You have deep experience in SaaS agreements, open-source licensing, and commercial deal-making

• AI- and privacy-savvy: You're confident navigating GDPR, CCPA, and emerging AI regulations in a practical, business-centric way

• Builder mindset: You thrive in ambiguity, enjoy solving problems without a playbook, and constantly look for ways to improve how legal works

• Cross-functional collaborator: You're empathetic, business-minded, and able to balance legal risk with product and revenue goals

• SaaS/PLG background: Familiarity with SaaS or product-led growth business models preferred

• Startup pace experience: You've worked in fast-scaling environments where priorities shift quickly and your impact is immediate

• Builder mentality: Excited to build scalable processes in an ambiguous, fast-paced environment

• Strong business partnering: Ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders and drive accountability

• Self-motivated: Highly organized, thrives in ambiguity, and demonstrates strong agency

• Operational mindset: Comfortable with hands-on operational tasks and hygiene responsibilities

• Bilingual French/English: You operate fluently in both languages

The builders we're looking for:

• First-principles thinking: You question why things work the way they do

• Writing-first culture: Your memos are clear, concise, and drive action

• Customer obsession: You'll talk to users directly, not through layers

• Cross-functional collaboration skills – you thrive working with diverse teams and can influence without authority

• Builder mentality: You'd rather ship an 80% solution today than a perfect one next quarter

• Comfortable with ambiguity: You thrive when the problem isn't well-defined

• Hands-on experience building with AI tools – you've used LLMs, automation tools, or AI agents to solve real problems

Benefits & compensation

Base salaries are just one component of the total compensation package and are determined by a number of factors such as years of experience, expertise, qualifications and more. In addition to base salary, we offer competitive equity packages that play a big part in recognizing you for the huge impact you will have on helping us achieve our mission. Please note, the salary range is a guideline that is subject to change without notice.

• Competitive compensation: €80K - €110K* base salary

• 🏡 We offer substantial support for relocation (up to 10k€), including finding an apartment in Paris and supporting you with the visa procedure

• Significant equity package in a Sequoia-backed startup

• Health insurance for you and your dependents

• Beautiful office in the heart of Paris

• Opportunity to travel to the US multiple times a year

• Regular team events and offsite

*We can go higher for outstanding profiles.

Location

We're prioritizing building our team with an in-person culture at our offices in Paris and San Francisco, because we value the magic that happens when talented people work closely together.

Why Dust

We're not building yet another enterprise SaaS tool. We’re creating an AI OS that will fundamentally change how companies operate. We believe existing AI models are powerful enough to have a tremendous impact on the world (and will keep getting better). The key is building the infrastructure so they have the right context, and building the best interfaces for humans to interact with them.

We have the unique opportunity to explore and shape the way humans interact with machines while building a product we use ourselves every day.

If you're excited about crafting products that reinvent B2B software and want to join a team that combines the best of startup culture with the backing of top-tier investors, we'd love to talk.

👋 Even if you don't check every box in our requirements, we encourage you to apply. We value diverse perspectives and backgrounds, and we're more interested in your potential and passion than a perfect match to our checklist.

___

Learn how we think and work.

• Our product constitution: a story about our mission

• Agents at Work - Latent Space podcast with our cofounder, Stanislas Polu (2024)

• LLMs reasoning and agentic capabilities over time - dotAI podcast with Stanislas Polu (2024)

Compensation Range: €80K - €110K