General Counsel

Anki is a leading consumer robotics company, founded by three Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute graduates. We’re building on decades of scientific research to make artificial intelligence accessible to everyone. We are dedicated to creating unique consumer products that people would not expect to be possible, powered by robotics and AI.

We deliver accessible consumer robots at high-scale, along the way solving incredibly hard, real-world robotics problems while building a great consumer brand and company. Our products perform under a wide variety of real-world conditions in people's homes, every day, reliably and consistently and aim to represent the premium and most capable choice in the categories they are in.

We push the boundaries of expectations for what an affordable and accessible consumer robot can do today and we’re leveraging our presence in more than nearly two million households to build a software, hardware and cloud technology stack that will power a wide variety of even more capable consumer robots in the near future.  Our earlier products in entertainment (Overdrive and Cozmo) have been near the top of their categories for years, and Anki is now branding out into Home Robotics with continued development to push the boundaries on the smart home and into diverse related sectors.

Recently, Anki launched Vector, the company’s first fully autonomous, always-on home robot with a rich personality that is also a helpful companion. Being cloud-connected and packing an impressive amount of tech in a small form, Vector (The Good Robot) is a living character and an evolving consumer robotics platform that will continually expand for years to come.

To date, we have closed more than $200M in investments from top-tier investors such as JP Morgan Chase. Last year, Anki generated nearly $100M in revenue.

We’re proud to be regarded as industry leaders in the consumer robotics & AI space. Some of our recent accolades include:

Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in the “Robotics” Category (2015, 2016 & #2 in 2017)
CB Insight Artificial 100 List (2017 & 2018)
Robotics Business Review “RBR50” List 2017
San Francisco Business Times Tech & Innovation Awards 2017
Visit the Anki website and find us on Facebook and YouTube to learn more.

Description:

Anki is currently seeking a highly motivated attorney to serve as General Counsel. This position, based in San Francisco, offers an opportunity to work in a fast-paced, high-performance environment. The successful candidate will be responsible for managing a legal function to support the evolving needs of the business and leading tactical legal initiatives by providing a strategic, long-term value proposition focused on smart growth and risk management.  Specifically, this position will provide legal advice and counsel for all areas of the business including commercial agreements, IP, logistics, international compliance, and litigation.

Responsibilities:

This role reports jointly to the CEO and the CSO

Providing advice and counsel to all levels of management on the business environment, challenges, and corporate objectives
Take an active effort in developing strategies, systems, and processes that will minimize the sources and degree of risk faced by the company on a daily basis while maintaining business objectives.
Reviewing, participating in the development of or providing input on strategic plans, execution plans, risk policy and risk tolerance, annual budgets and business plans
Address pertinent issues relevant to business and product initiatives including:
Intellectual property protection
Product compliance and safety requirements
Consumer privacy and data protection
International codes and regulations
International corporate structures and business practices
Work closely with internal and external stakeholders to define a strategies and contingencies on legal actions taken against or filed on behalf of the company.
Review, draft, negotiate, and execute business agreements, contracts, licenses, and other legal agreements with partners and investors.
Manage prosecution of patent applications with counsel, and identify relevant strategies for international filings on a case-by-case basis.
Manage trademark registrations and strategies to assure efficient use of resources and adequate protection of company marks worldwide.
Collaborate with international planning team, operations team and overseas subsidiaries to assure that market expansion reflect best industry practices and that Anki’s products and processes remain compliant with applicable laws and regulations both domestically and internationally.
Advise on legal aspects of the company’s financing, including assessing and advising on current and future business structures and legal entities.
Determine the optimal balance between an internal team and external counsel, and staff appropriately. Oversee the selection, retention, management and evaluation of outside counsel.
Setting performance objectives for the Legal team and collaborating with peer teams with respect to their objectives as they relate to legal or regulatory considerations (e.g., compliance)
Monitoring implementation and corporate performance
Approving and providing, as needed, oversight in major capital expenditures, acquisitions and divestitures
Implementing executive succession planning
The successful candidate must understand consumer hardware and software businesses, international supply chains and sales channels, understand issues surrounding data privacy/protection, IP protection and must be able to provide strategic alternatives and ideas on both legal issues and business issues affected by legal considerations.

Qualifications:

10+ years of progressive legal experience working in corporate law with 5+ years working in-house. Past experience working with consumer technology companies a plus.
Strong knowledge of corporate law.
Highly motivated with excellent business judgment and organizational skills.
Adaptability and flexibility to work in an environment of simultaneously competing demands.
Demonstrated ability to create legal defensive or proactive strategies.
Good analytics and reasoning skills as well as the ability to draft and communicate complex legal solutions.
Sound judgment and ability to analyze situations and information.
Ability to identify, assess and characterize risk.
Highest degree of professional ethics and personal integrity.
Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
Exceptional attention to detail.
Sense of humor.
Juris Doctorate from a top-tier law school and active license to practice in California.
Experience practicing in an international context is highly desirable.
Experience in litigation or employment law is a plus.
Benefits:

Great San Francisco office with lots of light and great views, convenient to every mode of mass transit – on wheels, on rails, and on water
Regularly scheduled on and off-site team building activities
Start-up environment where you’ll help shape the culture and have a huge impact
Free catered lunches, snacks, and drinks
You get to work on innovative products and challenging problems with some amazingly talented (and fun) people!