Director of Legal Affairs

Endurance is building the world's first modular subsea geothermal power plants, converting vast thermal resources under the ocean into gigawatts of baseload power. Backed by Founders Fund, Felicis, First Round Capital, and Point72 Ventures, our founding team includes veterans from SpaceX, Helion, Blue Origin, and Apple. We have completed multiple deep-ocean deployments to subsea volcanoes and are launching a long-term demonstration project this fall. By leveraging modular design, manufacturing scale, efficient drilling, and latent cooling on the seafloor, we are pioneering a new category of energy that outperforms traditional sources on environmental impact, deployment speed, and cost.

What you'll be doing

As Director of Legal Affairs, you will be Endurance's first in-house lawyer. You will report to our COO and work directly with the executive team on the agreements, structures, and decisions that take us from first-of-a-kind hardware to commercial power plants.

Our legal work has grown fast. In a normal week we are negotiating power offtake agreements, closing supply and equipment contracts for major assets, working offshore lease applications, standing up project companies around the world, and supporting a venture-backed hardware startup. Today that work is spread across the executive team and several outside firms. Your job is to pull it in, do most of it yourself, and make it faster, cheaper, and better. You will know when a matter needs a specialist, pick the right firm, scope the work, and hold the budget.

This is a critical position. Your judgment directly affects what we sign, how fast we move, and how much risk we carry into our first commercial projects.

Key Responsibilities

• Draft, negotiate, and own commercial agreements: NDAs, MOUs, LOIs, term sheets, and power purchase and offtake agreements

• Make sure non-binding documents stay non-binding, and that nothing we sign commits the company to terms it can't deliver

• Own supply chain and procurement contracts: supply agreements, statements of work, major equipment purchases (vessels, ROVs, subsea cables), and our standard purchase terms

• Build our contract templates, negotiation playbooks, signature authority rules, and a single system of record for every agreement we sign

• Manage outside counsel across corporate, energy, regulatory, tax, IP, and trade matters: scope each matter, set budgets and fee structures, and consolidate firms where it makes sense

• Support equity and debt financings with our corporate counsel, including data room and diligence responses, board consents, and equity grants

• Run corporate governance and entity management for the parent company and its project companies, in the US and abroad

• Work with External Affairs and outside counsel on federal offshore leasing, project company formation, and international project agreements

• Stand up our compliance programs for export controls (EAR/ITAR), sanctions screening, and anti-corruption (FCPA) ahead of international project agreements

• Advise our People team on employment matters: offer letters, contractor and consulting agreements, the handbook and policies, separations, and multi-state and international hiring

• Manage our IP portfolio with outside counsel, including trademarks, patent strategy, and IP terms in commercial and supply agreements

• Review real estate leases, insurance programs, and vendor agreements as we scale our facilities

• Train the team on what they can sign, when to bring in legal, and how to spot issues early

Qualifications

• Active bar membership in good standing in at least one US state, and eligible to register as in-house counsel in Washington

• 8+ years of directly applicable experience

• Extensive experience drafting and directly negotiating complex commercial agreements

• Experience in energy, infrastructure, industrial, or hardware businesses

• Proven ability to manage outside counsel to a budget, including scoping matters and negotiating fees

• Generalist range across commercial, corporate, employment, and compliance work

• Clear communication that a busy engineer or executive can action on

• High ownership mindset and comfort operating without support staff like a paralegal

• Track record of working effectively in fast-paced environments where business needs change quickly

• Able to work on-site at our Seattle headquarters, with occasional travel to project sites and counterparties

Preferred Skills

• Experience with power purchase agreements, offtake, or project development, especially in offshore wind, geothermal, or other first-of-a-kind energy

• Project finance experience for energy or major industrial projects

• Experience within a law firm as well as an operating company as their first or second in-house lawyer

• International commercial experience, especially in Asia-Pacific or with development finance institutions

• Experience building export control (EAR/ITAR), sanctions, or FCPA compliance programs

• Venture-backed corporate experience: equity financings, venture debt, board governance, and equity administration

• Maritime and offshore agreements, such as vessel charters, equipment purchases, and marine insurance

• Federal offshore leasing (BOEM) or government contracting experience

• Experience building contract management systems and self-serve templates for a growing team

As a pre-revenue startup, Endurance Energy offers competitive base salaries and generous equity packages for full-time employees. Final base salary will be determined by an array of factors including internal equity, job-related knowledge, skills, and work experience.

A key aspect of our compensation philosophy is that value creation should be aligned with rewards. Right now this means equity is a significant portion of every full-time employee's compensation. As the company matures, there will be continued evolution and changes to the total rewards and total compensation package. What will always be true is that if we win, we win together. Equity is granted to every full-time employee as a meaningful piece of ownership. We believe the people building the company should share directly in the value they create.

In addition to a competitive base salary and equity, employees will receive all of our other great benefits and perks, including:

• Benefits: Health, Dental, and Vision insurance coverage

• Time Away: Flexible PTO including 12 paid company holidays

• Global Fieldwork: Travel to fascinating deployment sites along oceanic ridges in locations like the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, and the Azores

• Hands-on Experience: Participate in sea trials and deployment operations in partnership with leading oceanographic institutions

• Cutting-edge Development: Work with technology that spans high-power electronics, marine systems, and clean energy

• Impactful Work: Help solve one of the world's most pressing challenges

• Dive Certification: Company-sponsored recreational dive certification

• Other Perks: Access to the company boat, free meals and snacks, and the list goes on!

If you’re selected for consideration, a recruiter will be able to discuss in greater detail.