Senior Manager Legal & Partnerships, Germany

About Zeno Zeno is a legal AI startup building a platform that helps lawyers, notaries and other legal professionals research, review, and draft documents with real legal reasoning, not just text prediction. We’re developing technology that can: Search and retrieve statutes, case law, and commentary with high precision. Reason step-by-step, applying legal tests and weighing precedents. Explain every answer transparently, so legal professionals can trace conclusions back to the exact sources. Where most tools automate surface-level tasks, we’re focused on replicating the way lawyers actually think through legal problems, making depth and trust the foundation of everything we build. You’re joining an early-stage startup that is already working with leading firms. Backed with €3M in seed funding, we’re now scaling a team that wants to solve real problems, drive innovation, and create lasting change in the legal sector. The role Help building a world-class team to redefine knowledge work with AI We are looking for a German-speaking lawyer to lead Zeno’s legal partnerships and commercial development in Germany. You’ll be part of the global Legal & Partnerships team and work closely with the founders and Head of Legal & Partnerships to support Zeno’s growth in the German market. It is a role for someone who understands how lawyers think, how law firms make decisions, and why credibility matters when introducing new technology into legal work. You will be Zeno’s first senior commercial legal profile for the German market and help shape our German market approach from the ground up: which firms we speak to, how we position Zeno, how we run demos, how we structure partnerships and how feedback from German lawyers turns into product and go-to-market decisions. This role is ideal for someone who has practiced law, knows the German legal market, and is now ready to move closer to technology, clients, product, and growth. What you’ll do You will take ownership of Zeno’s early legal partnerships in Germany. In practice, that means you will: build and manage relationships with law firms, notaries, and legal departments in Germany; run first conversations with partners, counsels, innovation teams, knowledge teams, and practice leaders; explain Zeno in a way that is legally credible, commercially sharp, and easy to understand; give product demos and lead onboarding conversations with new firms; identify where Zeno can create real value in legal research, drafting, review, and knowledge work; manage commercial discussions, including pricing, scope, pilots, and partnership terms; work with product and legal teams to bring market feedback back into the company; help shape Zeno’s German positioning, messaging, and go-to-market playbook; represent Zeno at legal tech events, law firm meetings, and relevant industry conversations. You will not be handed a rigid playbook. You will help write it. Who you are You are a former lawyer, legal counsel or legal professional with strong exposure to law firms or sophisticated legal work. You enjoy the legal world, but you want to build something more entrepreneurial, commercial, and technology-driven. You likely bring: strong German legal market knowledge; experience at a law firm, legal department, legal tech company, or legal innovation team; excellent German and English; the ability to speak naturally with lawyers, partners, and legal operations teams; commercial instincts and comfort discussing value, pricing, adoption, and firm priorities; confidence running meetings, demos, and negotiations; curiosity about AI, legal workflows, and the future of legal services; enough independence to build a market without waiting for detailed instructions; good judgment on when to push, when to listen, and when to bring in others. We are deliberately looking for someone who brings legal credibility first and commercial instincts second. Why this role is different Legal AI will not be adopted by law firms because someone runs a generic software sales process. It will be adopted because someone understands the work, the risks, the professional standards, the internal politics, and the trust required to change how lawyers research, draft, review, and advise. At Zeno, commercial work in legal tech is not about pushing software. It is about building trust with the profession. Why join Zeno You will join early, with real ownership over Germany as a market. You will work on one of the most important shifts in the legal industry: how AI changes knowledge work for lawyers. You will be close to the product, close to clients, and close to the strategic decisions that shape the company. This is a startup role. Priorities will change. Some weeks will be messy. There will not always be a process, a script, or a perfectly prepared deck. But for the right person, that is exactly the appeal. You will have the chance to: help bring a serious legal AI product to the German market; work with leading law firms and legal professionals; move from legal practice into a senior commercial and strategic role; shape Zeno’s German partnerships from day one; collaborate with a strong team of engineers, researchers, legal experts, and entrepreneurs; build a role that can grow into broader DACH or European market leadership.