About the posting
“In this role, you'll partner closely with GTM and other teams to negotiate and close enterprise customer deals, focusing on the East Coast and EMEA and APJ regions.”
Read the full posting on Exa's site
Seen live Oct 23, 2026; first seen Oct 22, 2026.
Pay in context
This posting lists $200,000 to $280,000 a year, a midpoint of $240,000.
The midpoint is higher than 78 percent of legal and compliance postings in New York, NY that list pay.
New York has a pay transparency law: covered employers must include a pay range in a job posting. Which employers are covered depends on their size.
How long it has been open
Posted Sep 28, 2026, 25 days ago, and seen on Exa's careers page today.
At 25 days old, it is under the 26-day median.
Exa at a glance
Exa has 48 open postings that we can see, 1 in legal and compliance; 100 percent list pay.
The application
Applying goes through Ashby.
Trailhead fills Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby forms on your computer; on the phone and on other systems it hands you your answers and your resume.
Seniority
The posting mentions 5+ years.
Place and cost of living
On site in New York, NY; prices in NY run 8 percent above the US average.
Similar jobs at similar pay
The legal and compliance market in New York, NY
359 legal and compliance postings in New York, NY are open right now, from 150 employers.
Half of them have been open 26 days or less.
From Exa's posting
This is Exa's own text, as published on its job board. We last checked it on Oct 23, 2026. Apply on Exa's site. We remove a posting when the employer closes it.
About Exa
We raised a $250M Series C to build the search engine for AIs. Led by a16z, with existing investors Benchmark, Lightspeed, and YC doubling down, the round brings Exa's valuation to $2.2 billion.
Exa is building a search engine for the AI era. Our Search API currently powers Agents, Fortune 500s, and AI labs as we transform an industry that hasn't been disrupted since the 90s. We're a team of ~100 from Harvard, MIT, Meta, Google Research, ex-founders, and dropouts alike. We are rapidly building the most intelligent search engine in history. We're high agency, low-ego, and united by the feeling that this is one of the last problems worth getting right.
About the Role
You will be an early legal hire and help scale a world class legal function at a leading AI company. In this role, you'll partner closely with GTM and other teams to negotiate and close enterprise customer deals, focusing on the East Coast and EMEA and APJ regions. You’ll also handle a range of other commercial work, including data licensing and procurement. As an early legal hire, you’ll also help shape the templates, playbooks, and processes that form the company’s legal foundation. You’ll also provide substantial support in other areas, including compliance, data privacy, and legal operations.
For this role, we expect the ability to work from our San Francisco or New York offices 5 days a week, though we encourage you to apply even if you might need some flexibility for a period of time.
Responsibilites
- Draft, review, and negotiate complex commercial agreements, including customer, data licensing, and vendor contracts
- Partner closely with GTM and other teams to enable deal velocity and provide practical legal guidance
- Help build and scale the legal infrastructure, including contract templates, playbooks, and processes
- Provide guidance on compliance, data privacy, and legal operations
What you bring
- A law degree (JD, LLB, or equivalent) and meet the local licensing requirements to work as in-house counsel where you'll be based
- At least 3-5 years of legal experience, with substantial commercial legal experience in EMEA and APJ
- Experience working effectively across time zones, particularly with teams in EMEA and APJ
- Experience building processes and systems from the ground up
- Experience leveraging AI tools in your daily work
- Excellent communication skills and ability to translate legal advice for cross-functional teams
- Embody our values of humility, urgency, and agency
- A self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, small-team environment
Exa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.