---
title: 'IP/Product Counsel at Chainguard'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/ip-product-counsel-chainguard-united-states-1c64pnwe7ctn'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# IP/Product Counsel at Chainguard

- **Company:** Chainguard
- **Location:** United States
- **Compensation:** $200k–$225k
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-08-11
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/chainguard/jobs/4704162006

## Job description

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.

Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.

Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

The role, in a nutshell:

We're looking for our first IP/Product Counsel to help Chainguard protect, monetize, and scale what we're building. Chainguard moves quickly. As a result, open source licensing questions, product launch nuances, and IP protection are part of the day-to-day business, not occasional legal requests.

This role sits at the intersection of IP and product. You'll manage our growing IP portfolio, lead enforcement efforts when our licensing terms are violated, and work closely with product and engineering teams as they build and launch new products and features.

This is a role with a significant runway. We're not looking for someone to walk in and build a fully staffed function on day one. We're looking for someone who can take ownership, build scalable processes, and grow the function over time.

The ideal candidate has a strong background in IP law, particularly open source licensing, trademark and copyright, with patent  and technology transactions experience as a plus. You'll also have experience working closely with product teams, including drafting product terms, reviewing terms of service, and advising on the relevant privacy, licensing, and IP implications of new products and features.

You should be comfortable working across both sides of IP: proactively building protections for the company and enforcing those protections when needed. Fluency in open source licensing is required, including knowledge of standard permissive and copyleft licenses (e.g., MIT, Apache 2.0, BSD, GPL, LGPL, MPL) and non-standard (e.g. dual license) , as you'll work with engineering teams on open source questions on a regular basis.

What You'll Do:

- Own and grow Chainguard's international IP portfolio;
- Lead IP enforcement efforts, including cease-and-desist actions involving customers or competitors who violate our licensing terms;
- Serve as a go-to legal resource for open source licensing questions from engineering;
- Advise product teams on licensing, IP, and terms of service considerations across multiple concurrent product and feature launches;
- Draft and review product terms and terms of service for new launches;
- Advise on licensing considerations in partner and joint development agreements;
- Partner with product and engineering teams early in the development process to identify and address legal considerations before launch; and
- Build scalable IP processes, templates, and resources as the function grows

What We're Looking For:

- 5+ years of legal experience with a strong foundation in IP law, including trademark and copyright; patent experience is a plus
- Strong knowledge of open source licensing is highly valued, as these questions come up regularly in the role
- Experience advising on product launches, product roadmaps, product terms, or terms of service is a plus, but not required
- Strong IP experience can outweigh lighter product counsel experience
- Comfort working both proactively to build and protect the company's IP and reactively when enforcement is required
- This is an individual contributor role today with the opportunity to grow into leading the function over time

Why This Role:

Chainguard recently experienced the busiest product launch stretch in company history. The pace isn't slowing down, and neither are the IP and licensing questions that come with it.

This role will sit at the center of that work. You'll help build the protections around what we're creating, handle disputes when they arise, and partner directly with product and engineering teams before they ship.

As Chainguard continues to scale, so will this function. For the right person, there's a real opportunity to shape how we approach IP and product counsel and potentially build and lead a team over time. Base Salary Range $200,000—$225,000 USD

## About Us

We live and breathe our company values:

- We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
- We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
- We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
- We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.

A few of the benefits we offer:

- Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
- Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
- 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
- ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
- 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.

If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with [Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice](https://www.chainguard.dev/legal/candidate-privacy-notice).

©2026 Chainguard. All Rights Reserved.

## About Chainguard

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Chainguard delivers hardened, secure-by-default open source software artifacts (containers, libraries, VMs, packages) to eliminate software supply chain risk for enterprises building with AI.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series D)
- **Headquarters**: Kirkland, Washington, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Dan Lorenc, Ville Aikas, Matt Moore

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Computer and Network Security (Software Supply Chain Security)
- **Target customers**: B2B — Enterprise engineering and security teams at Fortune 500 companies and high-growth tech firms (clients include OpenAI, Canva, Snowflake, Anduril, Snap Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet)
- **Mission or purpose**: To be the trusted source for open source, so engineering teams can build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.

## Products & Services
- **Chainguard Containers**: Minimal, hardened container images with a best-in-class SLA for CVE remediation. Average 97.6% reduction in attack surface per image.
- **Chainguard Libraries**: A guarded catalog of open source libraries that protect against supply chain attacks.
- **Chainguard OS Packages**: Secure, rebuilt-from-source operating system packages.
- **Chainguard VMs**: Optimized virtual machine images rebuilt from source daily.
- **Chainguard Actions**: Secure-by-default CI/CD workflows for safer pipelines.
- **Chainguard Agent Skills**: A continuously maintained catalog of hardened AI agent skills.
- **Chainguard Factory**: An agentic software factory (SLSA L3-compliant) that builds all artifacts from source, ensuring every line is verified, hardened, and traceable.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed. Total funding of **$892M**.
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue of **$15.1M** (estimated) / Total Funding **$892M**
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Amplify Partners, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, IVP, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, Mantis VC, General Catalyst.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount: **569 employees** (+59% YoY), operating in 18 countries.
  - Metrics: 424,000+ CVEs remediated, 106,000+ engineering hours saved, 520K+ images and 2.5M+ library versions managed.
  - Recognitions: Fortune Best Workplaces in Technology, Fortune Best Workplaces for Women, Great Place to Work Certified, Forbes Cloud 100, Fast Company Most Innovative Companies 2026, Fortune Cyber 60, RepVue Top Overall Sales Orgs.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Pioneer of "secure-by-default" open source**: Unlike traditional scanners that find vulnerabilities later, Chainguard builds artifacts from source with a hardened, minimal footprint from the start.
- **AI-native security stack**: Specifically designed to secure the AI software development lifecycle (SDLC), protecting against AI-assisted attacks on the supply chain.
- **Founding team credibility**: Creators and core contributors to foundational open source projects like Kubernetes, Sigstore, Distroless, and DriftlessAF.
- **Industry-leading SLSA L3 compliance**: Ensures every artifact is verifiably traced and built without tampering.

## Strategic Focus
- **Secure-by-default AI SDLC**: Hardening every layer of the stack that AI agents and developers use to ship code.
- **Simplifying continuous compliance**: Helping enterprises meet regulatory requirements (e.g., SBOMs, FedRAMP) without slowing engineering velocity.
- **Global expansion**: Building sales and engineering teams across the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, and India.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: "Serious about our mission, playful about everything else." Values include customer obsession, bias for intentional action, and assuming good intentions. Described as a high-performing, collaborative, and fun team.
- **Remote policy**: Fully remote-first — 500+ employees across 18 countries. Monthly coworking stipend, team meetup opportunities, and bi-annual destination summits.
- **Perks & benefits**:
  - 100% covered health, vision, and dental insurance (for employee + dependents)
  - 18 weeks paid parental leave (12 weeks bonding + 6 weeks recovery for birthing parents)
  - $18,000 family planning support (adoption, IVF, egg freezing, surrogacy)
  - $1,750 home office setup budget
  - $300 monthly wellness stipend
  - $1,500 annual professional development budget
  - Flexible time off
  - **10-year stock option exercise window** — a standout perk in the industry
- **Engineering culture**: Builds deep infrastructure (containers, VMs, libraries, SBOMs) and ships open source. Founders and many engineers are renowned OSS contributors.

## Sources
1. [Chainguard Homepage](https://www.chainguard.dev/)
2. [Chainguard Careers](https://www.chainguard.dev/careers)
3. [Chainguard About Page](https://www.chainguard.dev/about-us)
4. [Chainguard LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/chainguard-dev)
5. [Chainguard Job Board (Greenhouse)](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/chainguard)

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