Sebana
Energy Infrastructure Built For Tomorrow

Business Counsel - Full-Time

 

Business Counsel & Operator

Remote (US) or New York City | Full-Time

About Sebana

Sebana develops small and medium-scale battery energy storage and microgrid infrastructure that makes the energy system cleaner, more affordable, and more resilient. Focused on New York State and the broader Northeast, we partner with property owners and communities to bring distributed energy projects online closer to where power is needed, helping modernize and decarbonize the grid.

We are a small team - currently two people - and an early-stage company (founded in 2024). We are looking for someone to help lead the business, with the judgment and discipline that come from legal training and experience.

The Role

This is a full-time combined legal and business role for someone who wants to use their legal background, commercial judgment, and operating discipline to help build and lead an early-stage energy infrastructure company.

You will operate as Sebana's legal lead, owning the legal function and building the legal, outside counsel, compliance, and recurring commercial processes the company needs as it grows.

You will also be part of the company's leadership team, working on company-level priorities, including commercial strategy, project selection, risk allocation, and development execution.

This is an opportunity to get into entrepreneurship - including the personal development, breadth of exposure, and influence over what gets built that come with it - while having the stability of a salary and committed funding behind the team. You will have more impact than you would have at a more established company, but also less institutional structure and support around you. What this role becomes is yours to define as the business grows.

AI is an important part of how we work, both in legal work and across the business. We expect you to use AI for practical leverage in contract review, research, building internal tools, and whatever else becomes useful as the tools improve, while applying judgment, verification, and confidentiality discipline.

What You'll Do

Legal and contract work:

  • Partner on structuring our deals - the right structure can be what makes a project work, or wins us the business
  • Negotiate, draft, and review commercial, real estate, procurement, vendor, service provider, equipment supply, financing, development-related, NDA, purchase order, and engagement-letter agreements
  • Frame the legal risks in the decisions we make clearly and pragmatically
  • Own how we use outside counsel, tapping specialist expertise where it is valuable and using it efficiently
  • Help the company stay ahead of its compliance obligations as it grows
  • Use AI and legal technology for contract review, drafting, research support, issue spotting, and workflow improvement

Business and development work:

Much of our day-to-day work is development: weighing legal, commercial, technical, regulatory, real estate, and financing factors to decide what is worth building and how to move it forward. You will build working knowledge of energy markets, the electrical concepts needed to understand our business and project-development mechanics so you can shape the decisions we make. You will not need to be an expert in each area, but will need to absorb enough context to be able to contribute wherever the business needs leverage. This will include helping to:

  • Evaluate utility programs, tariffs, incentives, permitting paths, and market rules to determine target geographies
  • Lead customer or landlord conversations
  • Drive the development process and project diligence
  • Identify and engage vendors, consultants, outside counsel, and other counterparties

Who We're Looking For

Desired qualifications:

  • J.D. and active bar admission in good standing in New York, or active admission in good standing in another U.S. jurisdiction with eligibility and willingness to register promptly as in-house counsel in New York and satisfy any comparable authorization required where you perform legal services
  • Substantial hands-on legal experience drafting and negotiating commercial agreements directly with counterparties, with the ability to own the legal function and meaningfully shape senior business decisions
  • In-house legal experience preferred
  • Experience with energy, infrastructure, real estate, construction, project finance, regulated industries, startups, or operating businesses is helpful but not required
  • Active use of AI and modern tools to make legal and business work easier while applying independent judgment and verification
  • Interest in learning the business deeply and doing hands-on work across a small company's needs

Working style:

This role will suit a self-directed, practical commercial generalist who is comfortable moving between senior-level decision-making and detailed execution in the same week - leading a negotiation one day and filling out a permitting application the next.

Compensation and Employment Terms

  • Base salary: $200,000-$240,000, based on experience and fit for the role
  • Equity upside: In place of a cash bonus, this role includes ongoing grants of phantom equity units, awarded periodically. These are designed to provide ownership-like economic exposure to the value of the business we build together, subject to vesting and plan terms. Specific terms will be discussed during the process.
  • Benefits: 21 days PTO plus holidays; taxable stipend intended to help offset health care costs; travel for in-person gatherings is covered for remote team members
  • Employment model: Full-time W-2 employee

Location

This role is open on a remote basis to candidates located anywhere in the US. Working from Sebana's lower Manhattan office is also an option, but relocation is not required.

We will set up the collaboration and communication needed to make a remote arrangement work well, but for someone who wants to work from the office, we see real value in working together live.

Remote team members should expect to travel to NYC no more than a few times a year so the team can spend some time together in person.

How to Apply

Send your resume to careers@sebana.co, along with a few sentences on what draws you to the business-partner side of this role, beyond the legal work. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sebana is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, disability status, marital or partnership status, caregiver status, unemployment status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States and to provide in-house legal services to Sebana in applicable jurisdictions.

Note to recruiters: We do not pay placement fees to agencies or recruiters who have not been engaged by Sebana in writing for a specific search.