Head of Legal

The posting, as Arbor Energy wrote it

About Us

At Arbor Energy & Resources Corporation ("Arbor Energy"), we’re creating technology to power our lives while protecting the planet that sustains them. Our advanced power systems deliver clean, reliable baseload electricity with zero operating emissions—modular, fuel-flexible, and engineered for the realities of today’s energy demand. At the core is a supercritical CO₂ turbine with integrated carbon capture, designed to bring carbon-neutral power online quickly at meaningful scale.

Our team includes aerospace engineers, combustion experts, and systems thinkers with a shared goal: to build technology worthy of the world we want to live in. While many of us began our journeys looking to the stars, we’re applying that expertise here at home to deliver dependable, emission-free baseload power and a future of lasting abundance.

If you share our values and are drawn to rigorous work with lasting impact, we’d love to learn more about you. Come build what the future will run on.

Steward our planet : We build for tomorrow, ensuring every bolt we tighten and every hand we lend leaves our environment stronger than we found it.

Lead with Love : We champion the success of our people, partners, and planet, nurturing excellence through camaraderie and rigor.

Explore the Uncharted : We embrace the unknown with curiosity, using courage and discipline to transform uncertainty into opportunity.

Role Overview

As Arbor Energy’s first senior in-house legal leader, this is a highly hands-on role reporting the COO. You’ll serve as a strategic advisor to the executive team, personally lead our most consequential legal work, build repeatable processes for recurring needs, and determine when specialized outside counsel is required. You’ll set functional priorities, manage the legal budget and external firms, and build internal legal capability over time.

The role spans intellectual property, corporate governance and financing, complex commercial and project transactions, regulatory and compliance matters, and enterprise risk. You’ll help the company move from technology development to first-of-a-kind deployment and scale manufacturing while protecting the company’s core assets and enabling the business to move quickly and responsibly.

Responsibilities

Legal Strategy and Functional Leadership

• Develop and execute Arbor's legal strategy in partnership with the COO and executive leadership team, aligned with the company's technical and commercial objectives.
• Advise the executive team on significant legal, governance, fiduciary, financing, and enterprise-risk matters.
• Manage the legal budget and set functional priorities, decision authorities, and escalation thresholds.
• Personally lead high-priority matters; manage and develop legal resources, including outside counsel, legal-operations support, and future direct reports, with clear accountability and performance expectations.

Financing and Corporate Governance

• Lead legal strategy and exe

[…]
ation and leading legal resources, including direct reports, legal-operations professionals, and outside counsel.

• Experience leading venture or growth-stage financing, corporate-governance work, and complex commercial transactions.
• Working knowledge of intellectual-property strategy and experience managing specialized patent counsel.
• Strong commercial judgment and the willingness to move between Board-level advice and detailed legal work as the technology, business model, and risk profile evolve.
• Clear, direct communication skills and the ability to make complex legal issues understandable and actionable for technical and business leaders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree.
• Experience working in a startup environment.

Benefits & Compensation

• Pre-IPO stock options
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance (Arbor covers 90% for employees)
• Basic life insurance fully covered
• Health savings account (HSA) with matching
• Flexible savings account (FSA)
• Unlimited PTO
• 12+ company holidays, including Earth Day!
• 401(k)
• Commuter benefits
• Annual learning and development stipend
• And more!

Base Pay : $200,000 - $235,000 USD/year. The salary is subject to the applicant's skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location.

Our Commitment

Arbor Energy is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. Solving global energy challenges requires a wide range of perspectives and experiences, and we are committed to building a team that reflects the world we serve.

Our hiring process is designed to be accessible, fair, and focused on the work that matters most for this role. Reasonable accommodations are available throughout the hiring process and employment—please let us know if you need one.