Senior Counsel, IP

About SandboxAQ

SandboxAQ is a high-growth company delivering AI solutions that address some of the world's greatest challenges. The company’s Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) power advances in life sciences, financial services, navigation, cybersecurity, and other sectors.

We are a global team that is tech-focused and includes experts in AI, chemistry, cybersecurity, physics, mathematics, medicine, engineering, and other specialties. The company emerged from Alphabet Inc. as an independent, growth capital-backed company in 2022, funded by leading investors and supported by a braintrust of industry leaders.

At SandboxAQ, we’ve cultivated an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, and impact. By investing deeply in our people, we’re building a thriving, global workforce poised to tackle the world's epic challenges. Join us to advance your career in pursuit of an inspiring mission, in a community of like-minded people who value entrepreneurialism, ownership, and transformative impact.

The Opportunity

SandboxAQ’s legal team supports the business by protecting the company’s innovations and enabling growth while mitigating legal risk. The team embodies curiosity, collaboration, and creative problem-solving and works closely with business, finance, general managers, R&D leadership, and other cross-functional teams.

The legal team is looking for a Senior Counsel, Intellectual Property to join our team. This person will own the strategy and development of our IP function alongside our IP executive business sponsor. As an early legal hire, this person will play a key role in building a forward-thinking, business-savvy, dynamic legal team.

Among other things, the role will focus on owning our patent portfolio end to end, partnering directly with scientists and engineers to identify patentable work, managing outside patent firms, informing product strategy and launches through freedom-to-operate and clearance analyses, and serving as the IP voice in commercial, collaboration, and corporate transactions.

Key Responsibilities

• Own our patent portfolio end to end, including invention harvesting, filing strategy, prosecution management, and lifecycle decisions on continuations, abandonments, and annuities.
• Partner directly with scientists and engineers — including PhD physicists, chemists, and ML researchers — to identify patentable work early, run invention disclosure and review, and create an efficient and high-value end-to-end cycle with inventors.
• Direct and hold accountable outside patent firms and foreign associates on quality, cost, and timeliness.
• Run freedom-to-operate and clearance analyses to inform and shape product strategy and launches, and serve as the IP voice in commercial, collaboration, and corporate transactions.
• Build and maintain our broader IP program, including our trade secret program and trademark clearance, prosecution, and enforcement across our product brands, while working cross-functionally to craft legal strategies that fuel growth while mitigating risk.
• Essential Skills & Experience
• Juris Doctor (J.D.) or equivalent law degree, with admission to practice in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
• 7+ years of substantive intellectual property law experience, with significant depth and expertise in patent law.
• Strong technical fluency, with the ability to engage credibly and effectively with PhD-level physicists, chemists, machine learning researchers, and other technical experts.
• Strategic and agile, with the ability to thrive in fast-paced, high-growth environments where smart, rapid decision-making is essential.
• Collaborative and high EQ, with the ability to build relationships across diverse teams and translate complex legal concepts into actionable business strategies.
• Highly Desired Skills & Experience
• A combination of in-house and Big Law experience is strongly preferred.
• USPTO registration / patent bar admission is preferred.
• An undergraduate or graduate degree in a STEM field — physics, chemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, or similar — is strongly valued.
• Experience with AI/ML, life sciences, or computational chemistry subject matter, including Section 101 eligibility strategy for software and algorithmic inventions.
• Experience or interest in building an IP program from an early stage rather than inheriting a mature one. Experience with government-funded contracts, trade secret program design, litigation or contested-proceeding exposure (IPR, PGR, oppositions), and demonstrated use of or specific interest in AI tooling to accelerate legal work — including prior art review, disclosure drafting, portfolio analytics, docket triage, and outside counsel work product review — are also valued.
• Why Join Us?
• We offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your health, financial well-being, and life outside of work.
• Career Defining Work

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