Legal Counsel

Taptapsend; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Taptap Send seeks a commercially minded lawyer to own our legal function end-to-end. This hands-on role will manage a heavy contract flow with payout and banking partners, vendors, and customer/partnership agreements, and help build scalable playbooks and tooling for speed and consistency.

Location: London preferred, with Paris/Brussels as other hubs. You will work autonomously in a fast-growth fintech, shaping deals, policies, and external counsel relationships to support strategic growth.

Qualifications

• Legally qualified (any jurisdiction) with 4-7 years of experience, including in-house, at a high-growth startup or fintech.
• Proven track record in high-volume commercial contracting.
• Excellent at managing external counsel globally and balancing quality with cost.
• Exceptional communicator who distills complex issues for non-lawyers.
• Highly organized and autonomous, capable of handling multiple high-stakes deliverables.

Responsibilities

• Lead drafting, review, and negotiation of Taptap’s commercial agreements end-to-end, balancing risk and speed.
• Develop, maintain, and improve the contract playbook and standard language across common deal types.
• Deploy AI-assisted contract workflows and monitor quality against human review.
• Advise business on key deals: partnerships, expansion, new products.
• Manage external counsel efficiently, ensuring quality and cost controls.
• Partner with product, finance, operations, compliance and leadership to enable commercial growth.
• Cover broader legal work as priorities require, aligning with risk and compliance.

Skills

In-house experience

Fintech/payments

Commercial contracting

External counsel management

Communication

Project management

Education

Qualified lawyer

Tools

AI in legal tech

Job description

About Us

We’re building the world’s leading cross-border fintech for emerging markets - empowering families, fueling local economies, and changing how millions access financial services.

Since our launch in 2019, we have transformed how money moves across borders with our operations spanning 6 out of 7 continents and covering both the busiest and most underserved (remittance) corridors. We tapped into a massive shift - from banks to phones - bringing digital finance to places where traditional systems never reached. The next stage of growth will fuel a network of services and products especially designed to make money more accessible to diaspora communities including local cards, and additional savings and payments features.

We’re growing fast, backed by world-class investors, and scaling a product that blends real world impact with cutting edge fintech innovation.

Here’s a little more:

• Founded by Harvard grads and 3-time founders who previously built Segovia (acquired) and GiveDirectly (>$300M revenue, fastest-growing NGO in the world)

• Backed by top investors including Spark Capital, Canaan, Reid Hoffman, Breyer Capital, Unbound, Wamda, and more

• Built by global top performers from Bain, Google, McKinsey, Uber, Checkout, Bolt, and beyond - we move fast, stay humble, and care deeply about our mission

• Truly global team - 250+ people, 50+ nationalities, 50+ languages

• Guided by our values - ownership, impact, humility, and heart - in deed, not just word

The Role

We're looking for a sharp, commercially-minded lawyer ready to take real ownership across our legal function, not just execute on it. This is a hands‑on role: you’ll run a heavy contract flow across payout partners, banking partners, vendors, and customer/partnership agreements. You will contribute to and help build the playbook and tooling that make the function fast and consistent. This is a high-autonomy, high-impact role with meaningful scope to grow into broader leadership.

Location: London (preferred) / Paris / Brussels

What you'll do

• Lead drafting, review, and negotiation of Taptap’s commercial agreements end-to-end, applying a risk-balanced approach that supports growth at startup speed.

• Build and run the contract playbook. Develop, maintain, and continuously improve Taptap’s commercial contract playbook: standard positions, fallbacks, escalation triggers, and approved language across the deal types we see most.

• Deploy AI and legal tech in production. Build, evaluate, and operate AI‑assisted contract workflows and measure their quality against human review.

• Advise the business on the deals that matter. Sit at the intersection of legal and business strategy on Taptap’s most consequential commercial decisions: major partnerships, market expansion, new products.

• Manage external counsel effectively. Use outside counsel selectively, hold them to quality and turnaround, and keep spend proportional to risk.

• Partner cross-functionally. Build workflows with product, finance, operations, compliance, and leadership so legal is a proactive enabler on the commercial side of the business.

• Cover broader legal matters as needed. Step into other legal work where business priorities require it, keeping commercial objectives aligned with compliance and risk.

What we're looking for

• Legally qualified (any jurisdiction) with 4-7 years of experience, including proven track record in‑house, at a high‑growth startup or fintech, or comparable private practice FinTech/payments experience

• Demonstrated track record in a high-volume commercial contracting function

• Comfort with metrics. You think about cycle time, deviation rate, and escalation rate and you use the numbers to drive process change.

• Excellent at managing external counsel globally, balancing quality with cost.

• Exceptional communicator who can distill complex legal and commercial issues into clear, actionable guidance for non‑lawyers.

• Strong problem‑solver with the instinct to diagnose root causes and design pragmatic solutions.

• Highly organised and autonomous, able to run multiple high‑stakes deliverables in parallel without dropping balls.

• Comfortable with ambiguity, energised by new challenges, and willing to step outside your lane to get things done.

• Fluent in English. French and/or Spanish a strong plus.

Also you are

• Outgoing - you love speaking to people and enjoy building meaningful relationships

• Execution Oriented - we have an ‘impact first’ philosophy and a lot to get done. You should be able to take an idea to implementation

• Mission Oriented - you are passionate about working for a net positive organisation / tech for good

• Organised - you have a system for how you approach your work that can keep you on track in a scrappy startup environment

• Driven - you thrive in a fast‑paced, target oriented company

Taptap Values

Impact first

Team next

Accept reality

Propose solutions

Win with grit

Be proactively candid, with yourself and others

Love the particular

Own it

Create positive energy

Maybe, even have fun

Taptap Send is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workforce. All employment decisions are decided on the basis of qualifications, experience and business need. We strongly encourage applications who are members of underrepresented communities to apply.

If you require reasonable adjustments to be made during the recruitment process, please do not hesitate to let us know. Any information you provide us in this respect will only be used to accommodate your requirements.

Note: we recognize imposter syndrome is real - any candidate that does not perfectly fit every characteristic of this role is still strongly encouraged to apply.