Department: Legal
Reports to: CEO
Location: KSA
Job Overview
The Senior Legal Counsel will be responsible for providing practical, commercially focused legal support across QST’s data center development and operations activities. The role will support customer contracting, construction and procurement, land and power arrangements, corporate governance, regulatory compliance, dispute management, legal operations and external counsel coordination.
The role requires a lawyer who can combine strong technical drafting and negotiation skills with sound commercial judgment, strong governance discipline and the ability to support a fast-moving infrastructure business. The Senior Legal Counsel will work closely with the CEO, Finance, Business Development, Technical, Operations, Delivery and shareholder teams to ensure QST’s legal risk is appropriately managed while enabling the business to execute projects and customer commitments efficiently.
Key Responsibilities:
- Data Center Customer Contracting: Draft, review and negotiate customer-facing data center agreements, including wholesale colocation agreements, build-to-suit agreements, powered shell agreements, Master Services Agreements, service orders, Service Level Agreements, customer fit-out obligations, access and security provisions, liability caps, service credits, termination rights, change control, audit rights, confidentiality, customer credit support and related customer documentation.
- Commercial Contracting Support: Support Business Development and Finance in structuring customer contracts so that commercial terms are legally robust, bankable, financeable and aligned with QST’s risk appetite. Provide legal input on pricing assumptions where they affect contract terms, escalation, power pass-throughs, customer-funded works, take-or-pay commitments, remedies, liability
and termination exposure. - Construction and Procurement: Support the legal structuring, drafting and negotiation of construction, design, consultancy, owner’s engineer, project
management, EPC, design-build, FIDIC-based, equipment procurement, long-lead item procurement and operations/maintenance-related contracts. Key areas should include delay liquidated damages, performance security, parent company guarantees, warranties, variation orders, interface risk, commissioning, acceptance testing, defects liability, insurance, contractor insolvency protection
and dispute escalation mechanisms. - Land, Power and Permitting: Support legal workstreams relating to site reservations, land leases, usufruct or similar local land rights, landlord/developer arrangements, utility agreements, grid connections, power allocation, substations, wayleaves, easements, permitting, zoning, municipal approvals and other land/power arrangements critical to data center development.
- Corporate Governance and Shareholder Matters: Support QST’s corporate governance framework, including board and shareholder approvals, board packs, written resolutions, delegated authority matters, corporate authorities, powers of attorney, shareholder agreement compliance, constitutional documents, company secretarial matters and local corporate filings. Ensure legal approval requirements are properly tracked and documented.
- Regulatory and Compliance: Coordinate legal advice on KSA and GCC regulatory requirements relevant to data centers, telecom/network matters, data protection, cybersecurity, cloud and data sovereignty, foreign investment, government contracting, commercial registration, employment, anti-bribery and corruption, sanctions, procurement rules and other applicable compliance areas. The Senior Legal Counsel is not expected to be the sole expert in all areas, but must identify issues early and manage specialist counsel where required.
- Data Protection, Cybersecurity and Customer Assurance: Support customer and regulatory requirements relating to data protection, information security, data residency, confidentiality, audit rights, security access protocols and customer due diligence. Work with Technical and Operations teams to ensure legal commitments align with QST’s actual operational capabilities and certifications.
- Legal Risk Management: Provide practical legal risk assessments to the CEO and executive team, clearly identifying key legal risks, commercial implications, mitigation options and recommended decisions. Ensure legal advice is actionable, proportionate and aligned with QST’s commercial objectives and governance requirements.
- Disputes and Claims Management: Manage or support disputes, claims, delay issues, contractor claims, customer disputes, payment issues, regulatory matters and pre-litigation correspondence. Coordinate with external counsel where needed and maintain a clear dispute and claims register.
- External Counsel Management: Appoint, instruct and manage external legal counsel where specialist advice is required. Control external legal budgets, define scopes of work, challenge advice where appropriate and ensure external counsel output is practical, commercial and usable by management.
- Legal Operations and Contract Management: Establish and maintain core legal processes and controls, including contract registers, template documents, contract approval workflows, signature authority controls, legal trackers, board/shareholder approval trackers, regulatory calendars, dispute logs, external counsel budget tracking and document retention processes.
- Internal Policy and Compliance Support: Support the development and implementation of core company policies where legal input is required, including delegated authority, procurement, conflicts of interest, anti-bribery and corruption, document retention, contract approval, confidentiality and related governance policies.
- Cross-Functional Business Support: Work closely with Business Development, Finance, Technical, Operations, Delivery, Procurement and shareholder teams to ensure that legal advice supports execution rather than creating unnecessary bottlenecks. Ensure commercial, technical and legal positions are aligned before QST makes commitments to customers, contractors, suppliers, landlords, utilities or government-linked stakeholders.
Qualifications & Skills
- Education and Qualification: Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws or equivalent legal qualification from a recognized university. Qualified lawyer in good standing in a relevant jurisdiction. KSA or GCC legal experience would be a significant advantage.
- Experience: 6–10 years of post-qualification experience, ideally including a combination of law firm training and in-house experience in construction,
infrastructure, real estate, telecoms, technology, energy, data centers or other capital-intensive B2B sectors. Direct data center experience is preferred but not mandatory. - Technical Legal Capability: Strong drafting and negotiation skills, with familiarity with construction contracting, FIDIC or EPC frameworks, procurement contracts, commercial contracts, service levels, liability regimes, data protection, corporate governance and regulatory compliance.
Data Center and Infrastructure Understanding: Ability to understand the legal implications of data center development and operations, including land, power, cooling, construction, commissioning, customer SLAs, uptime requirements, security, access controls, fit-out obligations and long-term service commitments.
Commercial Judgment: Ability to distinguish between material legal risks and theoretical risks, and to provide clear, practical recommendations that support business execution while protecting QST’s position.
Regional Understanding: Experience in Saudi Arabia or the GCC is strongly preferred, including familiarity with local corporate procedures, government-linked stakeholders, land and power arrangements, regulatory processes, Arabic/English legal documentation and external counsel coordination. - Attributes: Excellent drafting precision, strong negotiation skills, high integrity, sound judgment, discretion, responsiveness, emotional intelligence and the ability to operate effectively in a joint-venture environment with multiple stakeholders. Must be comfortable working independently, prioritizing a broad workload and escalating material issues clearly and early.
- Language: Excellent written and spoken English is required. Arabic language capability would be a significant advantage.