Prophesee is the inventor of the world’s most advanced neuromorphic vision systems. The company developed a breakthrough event-based vision approach to machine vision that enables dramatic reductions in power consumption, latency, and data processing requirements. By mimicking how the human eye and brain work, Prophesee’s patented Metavision® sensors and algorithms reveal information that is invisible to traditional frame-based sensors.

Prophesee’s technology is transforming applications across industrial automation, aerospace and defense, autonomous systems, IoT, AR/VR, and mobile.

Headquartered in Paris, Prophesee has offices in Grenoble and Shanghai.

Job background

As Head of Legal, you are Prophesee's sole in-house counsel and primary legal advisor. Your day-to-day focus is on commercial contracts, IP strategy and corporate governance.

You will manage a panel of trusted external counsel across specialised domains (patent prosecution, M&A, export control, employment litigation), acting as the internal owner who briefs, coordinates and challenges them.

The role requires a business-oriented mindset: you give clear, actionable advice and help the company move fast, while building the processes and templates that will make the legal function scalable as Prophesee grows.

Commercial contracts

• Negotiate, draft and review day-to-day agreements: licensing, SaaS, OEM, partnerships, NDAs

• Build and maintain a library of contract templates and playbooks for the commercial teams

• Support Business Development on complex deals, providing clear guidance on risk and structure without blocking execution

Intellectual property

• Define and own Prophesee's IP strategy: what to file, what to publish defensively, what to license

• Assist with patents filling, maintain IP portfolio and monitors potential infringements.

• Brief and manage external patent attorneys on prosecution; ensure the portfolio serves the business strategy

• Advise the CPO on SDK and API licensing models, open-source policy, and third-party IP obligations

Corporate governance

• Handle routine corporate matters: board resolutions, shareholder agreements, subsidiary maintenance

• Coordinate with external counsel on financing rounds and M&A processes, owning the internal workstream and due diligence

Compliance

• Track evolving regulations relevant to Prophesee: AI Act, GDPR, data localisation, dual-use / export control

• Identify when external specialist advice is needed and brief the relevant counsel proactively

• Ensure the company has appropriate compliance processes in place without over-engineering them

Support product and engineering teams

• Reviews product features for legal risks (compliance by design)

• Help translate legal requirements into practical guidelines.

What you will manage via external counsel

You are not expected to be a specialist in all of these areas, but you are expected to know when to bring in external expertise, how to brief it effectively, and how to keep costs under control.

• Patent prosecution and freedom-to-operate analyses (specialist IP firms)

• M&A and financing transactions (corporate law firms)

• Export control and dual-use compliance, including any US ITAR/EAR exposure

• Employment litigation and works council proceedings

• Jurisdiction-specific matters as Prophesee expands internationally

• IP & Patent strategy

• Commercial contracts

• Export control / dual-use

• Corporate governance

• M&A / due diligence

• GDPR & data privacy

• Employment law (FR)

• SDK / API licensing

• VC financing

Soft skills

• Comfortable operating as a generalist: able to context-switch from a licensing negotiation to an employment matter to a board resolution in the same day

• Business-oriented: you give clear, actionable advice rather than exhaustive legal memos

• Able to build structure from scratch: processes, templates, and a legal function that scales

• Fluent in English and French (working language for most contracts is English)

Qualifications

• 7+ years of legal experience, combining private practice (tech / IP / corporate) and in-house

• Demonstrable experience in deep-tech, hardware, semiconductor, or defense-adjacent industries

• Strong track record in commercial contract negotiation and IP portfolio management

• Exposure to export control regimes (dual-use, ITAR/EAR) is a significant advantage