Contracts Specialist

Introduction

As a Contracts Specialist with Optimizely, the successful candidate will help accelerate Optimizely’s success by providing practical, creative, thoughtful, and quick answers to key contractual questions. The Contracts Specialist will be required to draft, negotiate, and manage a wide variety of agreements, including commercial and customer agreements but the focus will be SaaS agreements. The successful candidate will assist with the continuous development of the contracts function and its processes. Optimizely’s Legal function is diligent and proactive and works cross–functionally with all areas of the company in a collaborative, collegial, fast-paced, global team environment. 

Job Responsibilities

• Write, review, draft, and negotiate SaaS agreements, professional services agreements, partner agreements, contract addenda 
• Identify terms that vary from corporate standards to ensure accuracy and compliance, recommend appropriate modifications, engage and collaborate with internal stakeholders in the sales, professional services, legal, and other internal organizations as may be required 
• Provide effective guidance of contract issues to management 
• Assist with establishment of initiatives for contracts function, including contracting tools and processes, legal language library, reference materials, and playbooks 
• Provide guidance on contracting practices and procedures to employees and managers
• Advise sales management of contractual rights and obligations and provide clarification of contract terms and conditions 
• Act as a liaison between internal and external customers to efficiently drive the contract review and approval process to conclusion 
• Develop processes and analytics to track instances of non-compliance and develop a plan to minimize future incidents
• Assist in review and response to RFPs and RFQs, offering appropriate alternatives to contract terms and conditions 
• Prepare and administer routine and/or specialized correspondence
• Assist in other contracts management duties that may arise from time to time 

Knowledge and Experience

• Excellent written and verbal communication and negotiation skills
• Ability to interface with all levels
• Ability to handle and resolve conflicts in a professional and tactful manner 
• Strong analytical skills and interpersonal skills with ability to effectively work in a team environment and under general supervision
• Strong understanding of contract provisions and risks and the legal areas and laws that impact them
• Successfully accomplish work with a high degree of independence balance competing priorities with short lead times
• Effectively analyze significant, and/or unique contract requirements, special provisions, terms and conditions to ensure compliance with appropriate laws, regulations, and corporate policies and communicates results 
• Proficiency in MS Office, especially Word and Excel, is required
• Experience with SalesForce.com is preferred
• Experience with DocuSign is preferred

Education

• 4-7 years of experience in the creation, negotiation, preparation, administration and monitoring technology-related agreements
• 2+ years of experience with SaaS and/or enterprise software agreements is required 
• Intellectual curiosity about customers, products/technology, and contract provisions
• Prior SaaS transactional experience as a paralegal a plus

• For EMEA: Bi-lingual – German, Swedish, Spanish or French is a plus

Competencies