Square Inc. deputy general counsel Kirupa Pushparaj likes to tell people he’s an engineer first and foremost. While he hasn’t engineered software since his days at Intel in 2008, he’s about to embark on his biggest project yetengineering an all-new legal department for one of Silicon Valley’s most ambitious startups.

On Sunday, Pushparaj announced that he’ll become the first general counsel at banking platform Step on Aug. 9, and will help the startup build its legal department from scratch.