Senior Contracts Manager

Responsibilities

• Lead preparation, review, negotiation, and administration of contracts for Australian Defence, allied governments, prime contractors, and commercial customers.
• Support Australian Government and Defence tenders, including solicitation review, compliance matrices, qualifications and departures, and commercial assumptions.
• Negotiate and administer ASDEFCON-based contracts and apply the Commonwealth Procurement Rules.
• Manage commercial risks involving intellectual property, technical data, software rights, liability, indemnities, insurance, warranties, acceptance, delays, liquidated damages, remedies, audits, termination, governing law, and dispute resolution.
• Draft and negotiate product-sale, framework, teaming, reseller or representative, memorandum of understanding, nondisclosure, and statement-of-work agreements.
• Negotiate software development, licensing, SDK/API access, professional services, integration, and third-party software terms.
• Develop intellectual-property structures covering background and foreground IP, technical data, software rights, derivative works, improvements, interfaces, and government or third-party use rights.
• Support contracts for defence products combining hardware, software, integration, testing, delivery, acceptance, warranty, product liability, repairs, spares, training, field support, upgrades, and sustainment.
• Maintain contract summaries, obligations registers, deliverable and milestone tracking, notices, change-control records, funding status, claims files, correspondence, approvals, and audit-ready documentation.
• Lead modifications, amendments, extensions, renewals, equitable-adjustment requests, claims, settlements, and closeout.
• Serve as the contractual interface with customers, subcontractors, suppliers, technology partners, and internal stakeholders.
• Train stakeholders on contracting requirements, delegated authority, negotiation strategy, obligations, and commercial risk.
• Develop scalable contracting processes, templates, playbooks, approval workflows, and contract-management tools.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in law, business, commerce, finance, engineering, supply chain, international relations, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
• At least eight years of progressively responsible contracts or commercial-management experience in defence, aerospace, advanced technology, or another highly regulated product environment.
• Experience supporting or negotiating contracts with the Australian Department of Defence, Australian Government entities, or major Australian Defence contractors.
• Practical experience with ASDEFCON-based tenders or contracts and the Commonwealth Procurement Rules.
• Experience negotiating and administering complex hardware and software product contracts.
• Experience with software development, software licensing, technology integration, intellectual property, technical data, or data-rights agreements.
• Experience negotiating international commercial or cross-border government transactions.
• Understanding of product delivery, acceptance, warranty, product liability, sustainment, support, intellectual property, export control, and information security.
• Ability to lead complex, high-value negotiations and manage concurrent transactions and deadlines.
• Strong commercial judgment and ability to translate legal, technical, operational, and regulatory requirements into practical recommendations.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work across time zones and with distributed teams.
• Legal authorisation to work in Australia.