[Hiring] IP and Data Privacy Counsel @Surge AI

Role Description

As IP and Data Privacy Counsel at Surge, you’ll be our in-house expert on the legal questions at the center of our business:

• How data is collected and handled
• Who owns the data and content that AI systems are built on
• How our work fits into privacy and IP law that is changing quickly

You’ll be an early member of a new legal team and work directly with our General Counsel. This role is ideal for a lawyer who wants to work close to the frontier of AI, is comfortable when the law is unsettled, and wants to build programs rather than inherit them.

What You’ll Do:

• Advise on data privacy across US and EU/UK law, and build and maintain our privacy program, including policies, notices, data processing agreements, and our approach to cross-border transfers.
• Handle privacy filings and registrations, and respond to regulator, customer, and contributor inquiries.
• Advise on copyright, trademark, and other IP questions that come up in AI data work, including how IP flows between Surge, our customers, our vendors, and our contributors.
• Track litigation, legislation, and regulation on AI, data, and IP, and act as an early warning indicator for any issues that impact our business.
• Work with our corporate counsel to set IP and data terms in customer and vendor agreements.
• Partner with product, engineering, security, and HR on new data flows and features.
• Manage outside counsel, and decide what we handle in-house.
• Write guidance that people can actually use.

Qualifications

• 5-10 years of experience as a lawyer, at a law firm (mid-level associate or higher) or in-house.
• Hands-on experience with US and EU/UK privacy laws, including filings, compliance programs, and following new legislation.
• Strong working knowledge of trademark and copyright, and of current case law, especially the cases shaping how AI companies use and produce content.
• Clear, practical communication. You give a recommendation and explain the risk in plain language, not a memo that avoids a call.
• Comfortable with ambiguity. You can structure a question nobody has answered yet and keep moving.
• Able to work with engineers, researchers, and business teams who want to move fast, and find a path that holds up legally.
• Genuinely curious about AI and how models are built and evaluated.
• Willing to do the work yourself, from drafting to filings, while the team is small, and interested in leading and developing new talent as we grow.