Senior Counsel, Transactions, (Enterprise, Payments, and Ecosystem)

About the role

Circle is seeking a highly proactive and accountable individual to join our Assistant General Counsel - Transactions team. This role will play a critical role in supporting our Enterprise Sales, Payments, and Ecosystem business segments globally, particularly in relation to the Arc network.

Responsibilities

• Be a trusted partner to Circle's Enterprise, Payments, and Ecosystem teams, working collaboratively and building strong lines of communication across global business teams.
• Support enterprise sales, product partnerships, and growth, and ecosystem business development functions globally, including commercial transactions in support of Arc.
• Structure, negotiate, and draft complex fintech, payments, crypto, and tech transactions across global markets, addressing legal risk in business-centric ways with the goal of strengthening commercial partnerships and advancing revenue opportunities.
• Create and expand contract templates and terms of use to reflect new and existing products and services, including Circle's stablecoin infrastructure, payments rails, Arc network integrations, and ecosystem partnerships.
• Aid in the development and implementation of processes, procedures, and metrics (including efficient contracting workflows) to increase the overall effectiveness of legal services provided to global business teams.
• Aid business leaders with contract interpretation and management as they execute deals with enterprise platforms, marketplaces, PSPs, and payments-native companies globally.
• Remain current on developments in finance, payments, stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain infrastructure, including Arc's role as a settlement layer for global finance, to provide sound, practical transactional advice across Circle's global go-to-market motion.

Requirements

• 10+ years of hands-on legal experience in global commercial transactions, including in-house legal department and/or top-tier law firm experience.
• Extensive experience drafting and negotiating complex fintech, financial services, and technology agreements, including enterprise platform, payments, and ecosystem partnership transactions.
• Proven ability to support international business teams across multiple regions and markets, including willingness to participate in negotiation calls across global time zones.
• Strong understanding of legal and regulatory issues affecting payments, stablecoins, blockchain, digital assets, and technology product platforms; Americas and/or APAC exposure preferred.
• Ability to identify and manage legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, and operational implications, and to quarterback deals across stakeholders to drive alignment.
• Practical, business-oriented judgment with the ability to balance legal risk, commercial objectives, and Circle’s strategic goals in time-sensitive or high-pressure situations.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to distill complex legal, regulatory, and technical issues into clear, actionable guidance.
• Highly accountable, organized, collaborative, and comfortable working independently in a fast-moving, evolving environment while managing multiple projects simultaneously.

Qualifications

• J.D. or foreign equivalent, active membership in at least one U.S. State Bar, at least three years of prior top-tier law firm experience, and comfort using tools such as Slack, MacOS, GSuite, ChatGPT, and other AI-enabled workflows.