Forward Deployed Operator - Legal & Compliance

About the role Onodrim is building Europe’s largest defence and industrial platform. We acquire specialist manufacturers in critical defence supply chains, then invest in their growth with capital, technology, and operating know-how. We’re hiring a hands-on legal operations and project manager to help build the systems, processes and technology that enable our legal and compliance work to scale across Europe. You’ll combine process improvement and automation with practical day-to-day legal support, helping our teams work more efficiently without compromising quality or judgement. There’s no fixed portfolio. One project might involve automating parts of due diligence or compliance screening; another might mean reviewing routine NDAs against agreed guidelines. Periodically, you’ll spend time on the ground at acquired companies, working with their teams to improve legal and compliance processes and align them with Onodrim’s approach. This role suits someone who is tech-savvy, curious about challenging the status quo, and comfortable turning incomplete information into practical action. You’ll need to work independently, know when to ask questions or escalate, and enjoy being part of a wider team. What you’ll do: • Build smarter legal workstreams. Map how work gets done, identify bottlenecks, and repetitive tasks, and design and implement simpler, more effective processes across legal and compliance. • Put technology to work. Evaluate, test and implement tools and automation for workstreams such as due diligence, compliance screening, document management and routine contract review. Build in appropriate human review, confidentiality and data-handling controls. • Own delivery end to end. Turn broad objectives into practical projects with clear owners, milestones and success measures. Keep stakeholders informed, flag risks early, and see implementation through to adoption. • Support the day-to-day work. Help with routine tasks e.g., reviewing routine contracts and NDAs using approved templates, playbooks and escalation routes; coordinating signatures, maintaining records, and supporting other repeatable legal tasks. Recognise issues that need a lawyer’s judgement and escalate them appropriately. • Work on the ground. Periodically ‘forward deploy’ to acquired companies across Europe to understand their existing practices, identify gaps, and implement improvements, all whilst ensuring they stay aligned with Onodrim’s legal and compliance processes. • Make change stick. Create practical templates, playbooks, and guidance, help teams adopt new tools and ways of working, and hand over clear ownership so improvements continue after you move to the next project. • Be the connective tissue. Work closely with internal and external legal and compliance colleagues, acquisition teams, operating-company management and other business functions. Build trust quickly and, if necessary, help translate between legal and non-legal stakeholders. What you’ll bring: • Relevant experience in legal operations, legal technology, compliance operations, project management or a related process-improvement role, with evidence of hands-on delivery rather than recommendations alone. • Confidence with technology and a practical understanding of how digital tools and automation can improve workflows. You’re willing to test new approaches, question established practices and learn unfamiliar systems quickly. • Strong organisational and project-management skills: you can prioritise competing demands, track detail, and take initiatives from an ambiguous starting point to a working solution. • The initiative and judgement to act with limited information or oversight, make sensible assumptions, and recognise when further input or specialist advice is needed. • A willingness to get into the detail and take on routine tasks as well as broader improvement projects. You care about making things work, not just designing them. • Clear written and verbal communication in English, with the ability to build relationships across countries, functions, and levels of seniority, both independently and as part of a wider team. • Careful handling of confidential information, sound attention to detail, and a commitment to appropriate legal and compliance controls. • Willingness and ability to travel across Europe, including periodic on-site work with acquired companies. Requirements Requirements: • 4-5 years experience working within an inhouse legal or compliance team, ideally within M&A or Privacy Equity, with hands-on exposure to action and handle routine legal tasks independently. • Experience implementing legal technology and workflow automation. Coding curiosity is helpful, but not essential. • Experience supporting acquisitions, post-acquisition integration or process improvements across multiple businesses and jurisdictions. • Fluency in one or more additional European languages, particularly for working with local teams across the platform. Location and ways of working: • Our preferred locations are Amsterdam, Munich, Zurich or Vilnius. We may also consider candidates based in London who speak one or more additional European languages. • The role will initially be remote, with travel as required by the business. Once an office is established in your location, you’ll be expected to work from it two to three days a week, alongside business travel. Nice to have: Clearance in at least one of our operating countries.