About Dust

Work is being rewritten, and the people holding the pen are the ones who actually run it.

We call them AI operators: the employees inside companies who build, deploy, and run AI agents for their teams, without waiting for someone to hand them a tool. Dust is the platform they choose to rewire how their company works.

With 70%+ weekly active users, people stick with Dust as much as they do with Slack and Notion. We don't get piloted and shelved. We land once, and spread. We're at an exciting stage of our journey, and growing fast.

We're serving great customers like Datadog, 1Password, Cursor, Clay, and Persona, and aim to x5 our growth by the end of 2026.

Dust is backed by Sequoia with a determined team of optimists (coming from Stripe, OpenAI, and Stanford) who like to focus on users, ship fast, and don't take themselves too seriously while doing so. The Generalist named us among the Future 50.

Summary

As Dust's General 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.

• 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)

Own and scale legal as a business enabler

• Own and lead Dust's entire legal function as we grow from 80 to 150+ employees, working hands-on with stakeholders across the company to solve legal questions in real-time

• Design and implement a self-serve legal portal with scalable templates, playbooks, and training materials to support a fast-scaling global team

• Operate across both US and French legal environments, supporting business activities in our two primary markets.

• Define and manage Dust's legal external counsels strategy

• Support corporate governance matters including Board resolutions, shareholder agreements, and fundraising transactions

Requirements

• Qualified lawyer: You're a qualified legal professional with 10-15+ years PQE (Post-Qualification Experience), ideally with both top-tier law firm and in-house startup leadership experience

• SaaS commercial contracts expert: You have deep experience in SaaS agreements, open-source licensing, and commercial deal-making. Familiarity with SaaS or product-led growth business models preferred

• 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

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

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

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

• Transatlantic operator: You operate fluently in French and English, and are willing to travel regularly between Paris and the US (New York/San Francisco)

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: €180K - €210K* 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

The models are powerful enough. What's missing is the product layer where AI meets how companies actually work. That's what we're building: the infrastructure that lets any team turn scattered knowledge and tools into coordinated execution with agents they build, own, and run themselves.

We use Dust ourselves every day. We get to shape how humans and agents collaborate while solving our own problems with the product we ship. That loop is rare, and it's why we move fast.

If you're excited about defining a new category and want to join a determined team of optimists who focus on users, ship fast, and don't take themselves too seriously, 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 our cofounder, Stanislas Polu, 2024