Legal Counsel (f/m/d)

We see the potential inside everything and everyone. Starting with you. Orbem uses AI to industrialize MRI, delivering non-invasive insight into everything from fruits to eggs to the human body. We are transforming what is becoming the world's largest biological dataset into actionable intelligence to reduce waste, increase quality, and accelerate the shift toward a more sustainable and healthier future. Headquartered and founded in Munich, Germany, with an office now in Houston, Texas, our world-class team is scaling inside-out technology to transform how humanity sees and understands biological matter. Help us see what's possible. Join us. YOUR ROLE You will build Orbem's legal and compliance function largely from the ground up, at a pivotal moment. As we scale across Europe, into the US, and toward new geographies and verticals, legal and compliance touch nearly every part of the business — commercial contracts, corporate matters, employment, data protection, and product & AI regulation. Much of this exists today only in pieces. You will inherit that reality and the mandate to shape it into a coherent function. This is a role for a hands-on legal counsel who wants to build a function, not just run one — someone comfortable with ambiguity, who makes pragmatic, risk-balanced calls with incomplete information, and does the substantive legal work themselves while orchestrating a lean stack of external counsel. A central part of the role is building Orbem's compliance function: a cross-functional, integrated approach to knowing and managing our risks — across intellectual property, product compliance, information security, data protection, and regulatory readiness. We treat compliance as an enabler of speed, not a brake on it — applying the right level of rigour for our stage and moment, so Orbem stays compliant and moves fast. YOUR DAY-TO-DAY Legal & Commercial (≈ 40%) - Draft and negotiate our commercial contracts — the integrated hardware sale/lease, software/AI licensing, and service/maintenance agreements at the core of our B2B business, plus supplier and partner agreements. - Build and own our contract toolkit — templates, playbooks, and a clean review-to-signing workflow that lets the business move quickly without losing rigour. - Own corporate and governance matters, including corporate housekeeping, board and shareholder support, and our employee equity program. - Advise on employment matters and manage disputes and litigation in partnership with external counsel. Building the Compliance Function (≈ 40%) - Stand up Orbem's cross-functional compliance function — an integrated approach to identifying, aligning on, and managing risk across the business, rather than in silos. - Partner across IP, InfoSec, Product Compliance, and Data Protection to translate obligations into practical, proportionate standards people can actually work with. - Drive regulatory readiness for the frameworks that matter to us — EU AI Act, Cyber Resilience Act, export control, data protection — sequencing what we do to our stage. - Own the foundational building blocks — Code of Conduct and core policies as enablers of trust and speed. Orchestrating External Counsel & Lateral Leadership (≈ 20%) - Manage a lean stack of external firms (e.g. corporate, US, employment counsel), optimizing for cost, consistency, and a coherent global strategy. - Be the central hub for legal and compliance across Orbem — looped in early on decisions, not as a final gatekeeper. - Embed legal as a proactive enabler in fast-moving business workflows, and leverage AI and legal tooling aggressively to keep the function lean and scalable. HOW YOU FIT IN This is an individual contributor role at Principal level, reporting to the COO. Your influence is lateral, not hierarchical — you work across the whole company rather than through a team of your own. You partner closely with Information Security, Intellectual Property, and Product Compliance on the integrated compliance appr…