Associate Director, Employment Legal

Airwallex • San Francisco, CA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 200,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale.
Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,000 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.
We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.
You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next.
The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal minds and risk management experts. We're passionate about safeguarding Airwallex's operations, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct, and ensuring we navigate the global financial landscape with integrity. We provide expert guidance and support to all areas of the business, proactively identifying, mitigating, and managing legal and financial risks.

Requirements

• A minimum of 10 years post qualification experience with litigation and employment law experience obtained with top firms and in-house roles, preferably with multinational corporations.
• Experience managing and growing a team of lawyers.
• Experience dealing with US litigation - both employment and non-employment related.
• Strong stakeholder management skills - ability to provide actionable, practicable advice to stakeholders.
• Strong adaptability with managing new / unfamiliar jurisdictions or issues - ability to manage and lead external counsel in an organized and cost efficient way.
• Experience in dealing with contentious and non-contentious litigation matters and employment law issues.
• Experience in creating standard operating procedures (SOPs) and templates, creating “best practices” for the HR / Employment team.
• Relishes and thrives in a fast paced, fast growing company.

Nice To Haves

• Litigation / employment law experience dealing with EMEA matters.

Responsibilities

• Steer a wide range of contentious and non-contentious employment matters including employee and contractor negotiations, disputes, unfair dismissal claims, employee & workplace investigations, etc.
• Lead litigious matters and manage outside counsel involving Airwallex and/or its counterparties. Work closely with stakeholders to devise solutions for Airwallex that minimize risk in a prudent and effective manner.
• Trusted advisor to the Global People & Talent team on employee policies, employee related matters, including employee compensation insurance, investigations, termination, conflict of interest.
• Maintaining standards of employment contract templates and operating procedures for the Global People & Talent team. These include employment, contractor and people related contracts, including employer of record (EOR) service providers.
• Counsel to other Legal Specialist areas (including Data & Privacy, Product teams)
• Partner with the Data & Privacy team to ensure advice given to People & Talent and the Group on HR data handling are consistent with appropriate data protection laws and Group policies.
• Orchestrating Employee Equity Programs, with assistance from the Company Secretary and Airwallex’s whistleblowing platform and policy.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed