Legal Counsel

About the role Theta Data is hiring its first in-house Legal Counsel to run day-to-day legal work and own our compliance program. Theta Data Inc. is a market data vendor. We deliver normalized, low-latency API access to stock, options and index data for traders, quant funds, fintechs and researchers. We operate under data licenses from exchanges and connectivity providers, and we are a fully remote team spread across many states. This role is built for a lawyer with a few years of solid experience who wants more ownership. You will be the person the company turns to first on legal questions, handling most matters directly and managing outside counsel on the rest. You will report to the CEO and work closely with engineering, sales and operations. What you'll do Your time will split roughly between general commercial legal work and running compliance. General legal Draft, review and negotiate customer agreements, order forms, terms of service, privacy policies and enterprise MSAs. Review vendor, SaaS, colocation and data-center contracts, and keep a clean contract repository with renewal dates. Support upstream data licensing with exchanges and data providers: read the agreements, track obligations, and flag terms that affect product decisions. Handle employment matters for a multi-state remote team: offer letters, contractor agreements, handbook policies and state-by-state requirements, with outside employment counsel as needed. Manage corporate housekeeping for a Delaware C-corp: board consents, cap table and equity grant paperwork, entity filings and minute books. Advise on IP, including trademarks, open-source license use in our codebase, and ownership of work product. Scope, hire and manage outside counsel, keep spend in check, and know when an issue needs specialist help. Compliance Own compliance with our exchange and data-provider license agreements (such as OPRA, CTA/UTP, Cboe, Nasdaq and CME), including their policies, fee schedules and amendments. Run monthly and quarterly usage reporting to exchanges, and reconcile it against our entitlement and billing records. Manage subscriber classification: professional vs. non-professional status, subscriber agreements, and the onboarding checks behind them. Interpret redistribution, display, non-display and derived-data rules, and advise product and sales on what each customer type may receive. Prepare for and lead exchange and vendor audits, working with engineering to produce entitlement, access and usage logs. Review new products, data sets and customer use cases for licensing impact before launch, and handle new exchange applications and approvals. Track exchange policy and fee changes and turn them into concrete updates to contracts, systems and pricing. Train sales, support and engineering on redistribution limits and subscriber rules. How you'll grow We expect you to arrive strong in some of these areas and learn the rest on the job, and we will invest in that. Real ownership early. You will be the lead on matters that would sit several layers above you at a firm, with a direct line to the CEO on business context. Breadth. Commercial, data licensing, employment, corporate, IP and compliance all cross your desk, which builds the generalist range a future General Counsel needs. A niche specialty. Market data licensing and exchange compliance is a small, valuable field, and few lawyers know it. Learning support. An annual budget for CLE, courses and certifications (for example CIPP/US for privacy), plus time to use it. A path up. As the company grows, this role can grow into Senior Counsel or General Counsel, with the chance to build out a legal team. What we're looking for Required JD and active bar admission in good standing in at least one U.S. state. 1–3 years of legal experience at a law firm, in-house, or a mix of both. Solid commercial contracts experience: you can draft and negotiate an agreement end to end without supervision. Comfort working independently, prioritizing across many matters, and making practical, risk-weighted calls. Clear, plain-English writing for engineers, salespeople and customers. Nice to have Experience in fintech, financial services, SaaS, or data or technology licensing. Exposure to compliance programs, audits, or regulatory work. Familiarity with privacy law (CCPA, GDPR) or information security frameworks such as SOC 2. Experience as the first or only lawyer at an early-stage company. Interest in markets and trading, or comfort learning a technical product. When submitting your resume and/ or cover letter please include a short note on a legal problem you solved.