Managing Product Counsel

About the role

Thatch's mission is to build a healthcare system that people love. Each part of that mission speaks to what it means to be product counsel at Thatch.

Build: You are an embedded partner with technical and operational teams, helping scope, design, and deliver amazing products for our customers.

A Healthcare System: Thatch is not just one product, and your work does not sit within a single domain. The platform is a system of partnerships, platforms, and products woven together to deliver great experiences to customers, and you will almost certainly not be an expert in all of it. You'll draw on your experience and learn new domains while providing practical guidance and systems that help Thatch build better, safer products fast.

That People Love: Our customers are at the center of it all. You'll bring a keen eye to the impact of your work on our customers and partners, to make their experience more than they could imagine. This is not hyperbole but the reality of working at the cutting edge of a rapidly changing industry.

What you'll do

• Serve as embedded counsel to Product, Engineering, and Design from early scoping through launch, across new features, platform integrations, and partner-facing surfaces reporting directly to the CLO
• Advise on the regulatory architecture of the product itself: ICHRA and IRS substantiation rules, ERISA, ACA, and the producer licensing and TPA obligations that flow through our regulated subsidiaries–rules that are constantly evolving
• Partner with our Compliance team on product-facing regulatory review, but you'll own the pre-launch design and disclosure judgment
• Review in-product disclosures, onboarding and enrollment flows, and product marketing
• Work on the legal surfaces customers actually touch: terms of service, user agreements, consents and authorizations, notices, and disclosures
• Counsel on privacy, data use, and AI-powered features, including building the review process rather than answering one-offs
• Identify protectable intellectual property assets and work with IP counsel to protect it
• Build systems that scale: launch checklists, playbooks, self-serve guidance, and training, so teams can move fast without a lawyer in the room for every decision
• Work with others to set the standard for how product legal work gets done at Thatch, and work closely with others on the legal team as the function grows
• Partner with commercial counsel where product decisions create downstream contractual commitments to carriers, partners, or customers
• During your first six months you’ll (a) be an embedded with Product and Engineering, and teams are bringing you in at design rather than at launch review; (b) have written, shared standards for product-facing regulatory reviews (that both teams actually use); and (c) have playbooks to focus work on novel issues

Background we're looking for

• JD from an accredited law school with 9+ years of legal practice, including meaningful in-house time supporting Product and Engineering teams
• Experience advising on regulated consumer products where the compliance obligation is designed into the product rather than papered around it
• Knowledge of health insurance, employee benefits, financial services, or a comparably regulated environment (you may not have all but should have some)
• Ability to read a product spec, data flow, or design file and identify the legal issue without being walked through it
• Comfort making and documenting risk calls where the regulatory answer is genuinely unsettled, with a clear sense of which risks are worth slowing a launch for
• Track record of building legal processes, frameworks, and operations in startup or high-growth environments
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative approach with cross-functional teams, especially engineers and PMs
• Ability and willingness to lead, even if you’re not managing
• Sense of humor (lawyer jokes are a good place to start)

Experience we’d be particularly excited about

• Experience in health benefits, payroll, and tax reporting
• Depth in either IP or data protection laws
• Experience with AI governance in a consumer-facing product
• A fearless approach to using new technologies, including AI tooling, in your own work
• Strong business acumen with the ability to balance legal risk against commercial objectives

What to expect

We interview rigorously based on integrity, talent, and drive; the trust we display in our teammates from day 1 is a reflection of the confidence we have in this process. We aim to evaluate the things you’ll be doing every day as best we can, and we move quickly. Here's what to expect:

• 30 minute video meeting to talk through your background and interest in Thatch
• 30 minute video meeting with the hiring manager to dive deeper into your experience and the role
• 30 minute video meeting to meet 2-3 members of the team
• 30 minute video meeting with the legal team to work through a live case study
• 20-30 minute video meeting with our founders to discuss your approach to culture and our operating principles

About Thatch

We’re a fully distributed early stage company using technology to change the way America does healthcare. We’re a happy, friendly, high-velocity team. You can read more on Thatch here.

Originally posted on Himalayas