Director, Product Legal

About the role

Airwallex is the unified payments and financial platform for global businesses, powering over 250,000 companies with integrated solutions for accounts, payments, spend management, treasury, and embedded finance. Founded in Melbourne, the company employs over 2,300 people across 27 offices worldwide and is valued at US$11 billion. The Legal & Licensing team supports product development and sales, shaping a global licensing footprint while ensuring regulatory discipline. In this role you will serve as lead for a product‑counsel team covering Embedded Finance, Payments for Platforms, Issuing, and Lending, partnering with Product, Enterprise Sales, Financial Partnerships, Risk, Regulatory Compliance, and Engineering to structure novel deal models, advise on multi‑jurisdictional financial regulation, and ensure scalable EmFi products. This role is based in New York or San Francisco, US.

Responsibilities

• Support global enterprise AEs through structuring and driving forward Airwallex's most complex EmFi deals, and advise Product and other cross‑functional teams on questions about various EmFi models.
• Provide practical, risk‑weighted regulatory guidance on U.S. and international payments and financial services laws, including money transmission, AML/BSA, consumer protection (Reg E, UDAAP), card network rules, state licensing, and bank‑partner/BaaS requirements, translating regulatory complexity into actionable product advice.
• Draft, review, and negotiate financial partnership agreements and platform terms and conditions, including contracts with banks, PSPs, and card networks, and manage publication of terms updates for EmFi product changes.
• Develop and maintain scalable legal playbooks, reference documents, and approved use‑case repositories that enable Product, Commercial Legal, and Sales teams to move faster with less friction on standard deal patterns.
• Collaborate closely with Regulatory Legal, Data & Privacy, Risk, FCC, and Commercial Legal to ensure cross‑functional alignment on product launches, GRC escalations, and regulatory exam responses.
• Contribute to Product Legal Readiness for new market and product launches across the global GTM roadmap, coordinating with Global Expansion & Licensing and regional product legal leads to deliver multi‑jurisdictional regulatory assessments on time.

Requirements

• JD (or equivalent law degree) and active bar membership in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
• 10+ years of experience in payments, complex deal structuring, and financial regulation, with a proven ability to make decisions on the fly in the face of ambiguous regulation and novel fact patterns.
• Deep working knowledge of U.S. payments and financial services regulatory frameworks, including money transmission laws, AML/BSA, Reg E, UDAAP, card network rules, and bank‑partner/BaaS program requirements.
• Demonstrated experience serving as an embedded legal partner to product and engineering teams, providing proactive counsel from ideation through launch in a fast‑paced fintech or financial services environment.
• Strong drafting and negotiation skills, with experience structuring and negotiating agreements with banks, payment processors, card networks, or other financial partners.
• Excellent cross‑functional communication skills, with the ability to discuss complex technical and regulatory matters clearly with all levels of seniority, including C‑suite stakeholders.

Skills

• Prior experience at a top‑tier