Compliance & Risk Manager (Financial Crime & Seller Operations)

Paddle; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading SaaS company in the United Kingdom is seeking a Compliance & Risk Manager to oversee their Financial Crime Compliance Programme. This role involves developing controls for AML and fraud risks, ensuring compliance in seller operations, and advising first-line teams. The ideal candidate should have 7+ years of experience in compliance within the fintech sector, strong knowledge of regulatory requirements, and excellent communication skills. This position includes benefits like unlimited holidays and remote work options.

Benefits

Attractive salary

Stock options

Private healthcare

Unlimited holidays

Qualifications

• 7+ years’ experience in compliance, risk, or regulatory advisory.
• Strong working knowledge of AML, sanctions, fraud, and merchant risk.
• Ability to manage competing priorities with strong risk judgement.

Responsibilities

• Develop and evolve Paddle's Financial Crime Compliance Programme.
• Provide oversight and guidance for first-line teams.
• Draft and maintain compliance policies across the seller lifecycle.

Skills

AML knowledge

Fraud detection

Sanctions compliance

Cross-functional teamwork

Regulatory advisory

Job description

What do we do?

Paddle offers SaaS companies a completely different approach to their payments infrastructure. Instead of assembling and maintaining a complex stack of payments-related apps and services, we’re a Merchant of Record for our customers. That means we take away 100% of the pain of payments fragmentation. It’s faster, safer, cheaper, and, above all, way better.

We’re backed by investors including KKR, FTV Capital, Kindred, Notion, and 83North and serve over 5,000 software sellers in 245 territories globally.

The Role:

As Compliance & Risk Manager (FinCrime & Seller Operations), you’ll partner closely with Paddle’s Risk Operations and Support teams, acting as a trusted second-line advisor across the seller lifecycle. You’ll be the primary point of contact for developing and evolving Paddle’s Financial Crime Compliance Programme, covering AML, fraud, sanctions, and related seller risk.

You’ll help ensure seller operations and related product or operational changes are compliant by design, translating regulatory and scheme requirements into clear, practical controls. You’ll provide oversight, challenge, and guidance to first-line teams, ensuring risks are consistently identified, assessed, and managed in line with Paddle’s risk appetite.

This role reports to the Compliance & Risk Lead and sits within the Legal & Compliance team, working closely with Risk Operations, Support, Legal, Product, and Commercial stakeholders.

What you’ll do:

• Act as Paddle’s second-line SME for AML, fraud, and sanctions, providing oversight, guidance, and effective challenge to first-line teams responsible for control execution.
• Serve as the second-line escalation point for complex seller onboarding, monitoring, and financial crime cases, including associated incidents and issues, escalating material risks to the Compliance & Risk Lead where required.
• Support external engagements relating to Paddle’s fincrime programme and or seller monitoring programmes.
• Draft and maintain policies and standards across the seller lifecycle, partnering with Risk Operations to design, embed, and continuously improve controls.
• Lead compliance workstreams within product or seller remediation initiatives, ensuring risks are clearly identified, mitigated, and tracked through to resolution.
• Develop and maintain obligation mapping for regulatory, scheme, and product-related requirements, working closely with Legal to interpret applicability.
• Provide second-line oversight of product and operational change, ensuring key risks are assessed and appropriate mitigations are in place.
• Support regulatory change implementation, translating new requirements into updated policies, guidance, and operational controls.
• Contribute to risk management activities, including RCSAs, control testing, and documenting control design and effectiveness.
• Partner with Risk Operations leadership to establish governance and reporting, providing structured insight into financial crime and seller risk issues and remediation progress.

We’d love to hear from you if…

• You have 7+ years’ experience in compliance, risk, or regulatory advisory, ideally within payments, fintech, SaaS, or a Merchant of Record / marketplace model.
• You bring strong working knowledge of AML, sanctions, fraud, and merchant risk, Card scheme rules and understand how these operate in a payments and MoR context.
• You’ve held first-line and/or second-line roles, with clear experience providing oversight, advisory, or risk and control ownership (not just case handling).
• You’re a builder at heart and are comfortable being hands-on, including drafting policies, designing controls, leading remediation, and working through ambiguity in fast-moving environments.
• You have experience leading cross‑functional initiatives, particularly remediation, regulatory change, or control uplift programmes.
• You’re a clear and confident communicator, able to translate complex regulatory requirements for first-line teams and senior stakeholders.
• You’re detail‑oriented and pragmatic, able to manage competing priorities while maintaining strong risk judgement.

Everyone is welcome at Paddle

At Paddle, we’re committed to removing invisible barriers, both for our customers and within our own teams. We recognise and celebrate that every Paddler is unique and we welcome every individual perspective. As an inclusive employer, we don’t care if, or where, you studied, what you look like or where you’re from. We’re more interested in your craft, curiosity, passion for learning and what you’ll add to our culture. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t match every part of the job ad, especially if you’re part of an underrepresented group.

Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to better support you through the application process and in the workplace. We will do everything we can to support any accommodations needed. We’re committed to building a diverse team where everyone feels safe to be their authentic self. Let’s grow together.

Why you’ll love working at Paddle

We are a diverse, growing group of Paddlers across the globe who pride ourselves on our transparent, collaborative and respectful culture. We live and breathe our values, which are:

Paddle for Others
Paddle Together
Paddle Simply

We offer a full suite of benefits, including attractive salaries, stock options, retirement plans, private healthcare and wellbeing initiatives.

We are a “digital‑first” company, which means you can work remotely, from one of our stylish hubs, or even a bit of both! We offer all team members unlimited holidays and four months paid family leave regardless of gender. We invest in learning and will help you with your personal development via constant exposure to new challenges, an annual learning fund, and regular internal and external training.