Legal Business Partner (In-House Counsel)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Full timeHybrid
Job description
Location: Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE
Employment Type:Full-time
Reports to:CEO
Group Operations: UAE · Greece ·India
About Us
We are a technology company building advanced AI infrastructure, networking, and telecom software, with a portfolio spanning open network operating systems and AI data center solutions. Headquartered in Dubai Internet City with operations across the UAE, Greece, and India, we serve telecom operators, enterprises, and service providers across the GCC, APAC, and EMEA, and work closely with global hardware and technology partners.
As we scale internationally, we are hiring our first dedicated in-house lawyer to own the commercial-legal function end-to-end. This is a hands-on, generalist role for someone comfortable being the sole legal operator in a fast-moving technology company — building processes from scratch, partnering directly with business teams, and knowing when to escalate specialist or contentious matters to external counsel.
Role Summary
The Legal Business Partner will take primary ownership of contract law and intellectual property protection across our multi-jurisdictional operations, with a working-level responsibility for compliance. The focus is on enabling the business: closing deals, protecting our core software and hardware IP, and keeping the company on the right side of the regulations that govern cross-border AI and networking technology.
Contract Law (Core Responsibility)
- Create contract playbooks, templates, and approval workflows.
- Draft, review, and track renewals across the full contract set: Master Services Agreements (MSAs), NDAs, outsourcing / out-staffing contracts, license agreements, and other commercial contracts.
- Maintain a centralized contract register, including key dates, obligations, and renewal terms.
- Align contract terms with business objectives, partnering closely with sales, product, and leadership.
- Support due diligence procedures (investor, customer, and partner-driven).
- Identify, assess, and mitigate legal and commercial risks in contracts, including IP, liability, indemnification, warranty, and data protection clauses.
- Ensure contracts comply with applicable UAE law (including free zone / DIC regulations) and relevant international regulations (export control, data privacy, telecom regulatory requirements) across our multi-jurisdictional operations.
Intellectual Property (Core Responsibility)
- Implement multi-jurisdictional IP & IT legal and privacy frameworks.
- Strengthen robust IP assignment clauses in employee and contractor agreements across all three jurisdictions (UAE, Greece, Singapore).
- Support the establishment of legal guardrails for data use, content ownership, privacy, and IP risk mitigation.
- Manage trademark, patent, and software copyright registrations, and the domain portfolio.
- Lead open-source license review and compliance: legal review of open-source components adopted into products (including copyleft / GPL implications for distributed firmware and drivers), maintenance of a license inventory (SBOM), and fulfillment of attribution and source-code obligations — including what employees may contribute upstream and under what CLA.
- Conduct patent clearance for in-house developments: freedom-to-operate analyses and prior-art searches in target markets to confirm our developments do not infringe third-party patents, plus ongoing monitoring of competitor patent filings.
- Support invention disclosure and filing: patentability assessment of internal inventions and coordination of the patent filing strategy aligned with the product roadmap.
Compliance (Working Level — Nice to Have)
Expected at a base level; specialist and contentious matters supported by external counsel.
- Run periodic sanctions and export-control screening.
- Track regulatory filings.
- Track telecom regulatory developments in relevant markets.
- Organize the handling of personal data in line with the UAE Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) and GDPR.
- Support employment compliance (ongoing adherence to UAE Labour Law and free zone employment rules).
- Support product export-control compliance: classification against control lists (US EAR / ECCN, EU dual-use), spec adjustments to stay within permitted thresholds, and tracking of regulatory updates.
- Support multi-regional EDA and IP license compliance: territorial / user-access restrictions, re-export limits, and deemed-export controls for engineer access across jurisdictions and external design partners.
- Support end-user / end-use verification for customer shipments and technology transfers.
Requirements
- Law degree (LLB / JD or equivalent) and qualification in a recognized jurisdiction.
- 3–6 years of post-qualification experience in commercial / contracts law, ideally combining law-firm and in-house experience.
- Strong drafting and negotiation skills across MSAs, NDAs, licensing, and outsourcing / commercial agreements.
- Working knowledge of UAE commercial law and free zone regulations; comfort operating across multiple jurisdictions.
- Solid grounding in IP protection for software and technology companies, including IP assignment, licensing, and open-source considerations.
- Practical familiarity with data protection regimes (UAE PDPL, GDPR).
- Fluent English (written and verbal).
- Self-directed and pragmatic — able to build processes from scratch, prioritize commercial outcomes, and manage external counsel effectively.
Nice to Have
- Prior in-house experience at a networking, telecom, semiconductor, software, or AI infrastructure company.
- Exposure to export control and dual-use regimes (US EAR, EU dual-use).
- Experience with open-source governance and SBOM management.
- Familiarity with patent processes (FTO analysis, invention disclosure, filing coordination).
- Arabic and/or Greek language skills, given group operations in the UAE and Greece.
Why Join Us
- Own the legal function end-to-end at a fast-scaling AI infrastructure company.
- Work at the intersection of cutting-edge technology, cross-border commerce, and complex IP.
- Partner directly with founders and business leaders, with real influence over how deals get done.
- Shape the legal foundation of a company operating across three regions and global markets.