Sr Manager / Director, Legal Operations

Location: Remote
Annual salary: USD 150,000 - 180,000 per year
Final base salary within this range will be determined based on job-related factors, including the candidate’s experience, skills, qualifications, and geographic location.

Type: Full-time
Reports to: General Counsel

About the Role

We're hiring our first Sr Manager / Director, Legal Operations to serve as the front door of Legal at Nex Playground and to design and build the operational infrastructure the company will need over the next 18 months and beyond. The role may be leveled at Sr Manager or Director based on the candidate’s experience and demonstrated scope. Reporting directly to the General Counsel, you will be the first dedicated legal operations hire in the company. You will work in partnership with the GC and business leaders to define our target operating model, and build the systems, processes, and technology that let Legal, and the business it supports, move fast.

This is a builder's role with real breadth. You'll lead the rollout of our first contract lifecycle management (CLM) system, stand up corporate governance rhythms, own legal aspects of our international entities, and build the playbooks and templates. You'll also spend real time in the weeds triaging requests, coordinating signatures, and being the person the rest of the company calls first, while building the systems that reduce how much of that falls on you over time.

The work is heavily corporate and commercial: retail and distribution agreements, vendor and supply chain contracts, brand licensing deals, NDAs, and the corporate housekeeping that comes with a fast-growing, increasingly international hardware + software company.

What You'll Do

Legal Intake & Contract Operations

• Be the front door of Legal: own intake for all incoming legal requests, triage and route them appropriately, track status, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
• Lead implementation of our first CLM system (Spotdraft or Ironclad), including workflow design, templates, approval routing, finance and e-signature integration, and reporting.
• Build our formal contract lifecycle from the ground up: drafting support, redlining coordination, approvals, execution, and repository/renewal tracking for NDAs, vendor agreements, retail and distribution contracts, and brand licensing agreements.
• Design a template and playbook library for our highest-volume agreement types, in partnership with the GC and Commercial Counsel, so the business can self-serve on lower-risk requests.
• Establish signature and approval workflows, including delegation of authority guidelines, e-signature administration (e.g., DocuSign), and coordination of notarization where needed.
• Own Nex's employment-related form library (offer letters, standard employment agreements, contractor agreements, separation agreements, and similar templates), keeping them current and legally sound. People/HR populates and issues these day-to-day; you own the underlying template and update it as law or company policy changes.

Corporate Governance & Entity Management

• Support corporate governance motions: track board and committee meeting materials, minutes, and written consents in partnership with the GC and CFO.
• Maintain the corporate minute book, equity documentation, and corporate records, and coordinate with Finance/People on cap table accuracy and equity administration touchpoints (option grants, 409A timing).
• Manage legal aspects of Nex's growing family of international entities: formations, dissolutions, foreign qualifications, registered agents, and local corporate filings as we expand into new markets.
• Own trademark and brand licensing docketing: track licensor obligations, renewal deadlines, and brand compliance requirements across our partnership and licensing agreements, and maintain our internal trademark portfolio calendar.
• [Manage the corporate insurance program (general liability, product liability, cyber, D&O): track renewals, coordinate broker relationships, and issue certificates of insurance for retail and distribution partners.]

Cross-Functional & Compliance Support

• Administer vendor and outside counsel relationships: onboarding, billing oversight, budget tracking, and performance check-ins across the legal team's matters. You own the administrative layer; each attorney directs substantive strategy on their own active matters.
• Build the legal team's knowledge management and document repository and establish a records retention policy.
• Stand up legal metrics and reporting: request volume, cycle times, contract turnaround, and outside counsel spend, to give leadership visibility into how Legal is performing.
• Identify opportunities to use AI and automation to speed up contract review, intake triage, and self-service for common requests.
• Partner cross-functionally to understand client needs and workflows and build processes that make Legal a fast, trusted partner to the business.
• [Coordinate documentation for hardware compliance and trade requirements as needed - customs paperwork, safety/regulatory certification records, and import/export documentation - alongside outside counsel, Commercial Counsel, and Product/Supply Chain.]
• [Support the operational side of Nex's privacy program (e.g., data mapping, vendor DPA tracking, policy version control) in partnership with, and under the substantive direction of, Product Counsel, who owns the privacy program.]
• Support the operational execution of Nex’s Trust & Safety program, including policy lifecycle management, program and project management, risk and issue tracking, governance processes, metrics and reporting, documentation, vendor management, and cross-functional coordination, in partnership with and under the substantive direction of the Trust & Safety leader and Legal.

What You'll Bring

• 5-7+ years of experience in legal operations, corporate/contracts paralegal work, or a similar operational role - ideally including time at a high-growth startup or consumer products/hardware company.
• A genuine builder's mentality: you've stood up processes, systems, and governance rhythms where none existed, not just optimized an existing playbook.
• Hands-on experience administering a CLM or similar workflow system (Ironclad, SpotDraft, DocuSign CLM, or comparable); direct Spotdraft or Ironclad experience is a strong plus.
• Experience supporting corporate governance (board materials, minutes, entity management) at a private company, ideally including multi-entity or international structures.
• Comfort working across a genuinely broad scope - intake triage, contract drafting support, governance, entity management, insurance, and vendor management - without needing a narrow lane.
• Strong project management and organizational skills, with the ability to juggle high-volume day-to-day requests and longer-term build projects at the same time.
• Excellent judgment, discretion, and comfort handling sensitive and confidential business, board, and customer information.
• Strong cross-functional communication skills and the instinct to make Legal's processes easy for the rest of the company to follow.
• Curiosity about applying AI tools to legal operations work, and a bias toward pragmatic, scrappy solutions over heavyweight process.

Nice to Have

• Experience in consumer hardware, consumer electronics, gaming, or toy/kids' products.
• Familiarity with retail and distribution contracting, brand/IP licensing agreements, or international expansion and entity setup.
• Experience supporting a fundraise, board of directors, or investor reporting cadence at a venture-backed company.
• Notary Public commission (or willingness to obtain one).
• Exposure to privacy or children's data compliance frameworks (e.g., COPPA), or to product safety/import-export compliance for physical goods.

What Success Looks Like

• The business has one clear front door for legal requests, with predictable turnaround times.
• Nex's first CLM system is live, with templates and workflows covering the highest-volume agreement types.
• Corporate governance, entity management, and trademark docketing run on a reliable calendar instead of being reconstructed reactively.
• Outside counsel spend and performance are visible and managed, not a black box.
• The GC and attorneys spend materially less time on administrative and process work than they did before this role existed.