Compliance & Risk Lead (Maternity Cover)

Paddle; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 173,000; Full time

Job summary

Paddle is seeking a Compliance Risk Lead to join our global compliance team. Based in the UK, you will work closely with legal, product and operations to ensure Paddle remains compliant with international payments and fintech regulations as we scale.

You will lead the compliance team, design and refine policies, implement data-driven monitoring, and produce timely reports for senior leadership, the Board and regulators to demonstrate Paddle’s regulatory adherence.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading a compliance team in payments/regulatory space.
• Strong knowledge of global card scheme rules and consumer protection laws.
• Experience building data-driven monitoring and reporting programs.

Responsibilities

• Lead the compliance team and align with legal, product and ops.
• Develop and refine global payments compliance policies and procedures.
• Design tech-enabled monitoring programs and track key risk indicators.
• Deliver reports to senior leadership, Board and regulators.
• Manage enterprise risk program and regulatory research.
• Lead investigations into high-risk incidents and regulatory breaches.

Skills

Team leadership

Payments compliance

Regulatory risk

Regulatory reporting

Data-driven monitoring

Job description

What do we do?

Paddle offers digital product companies a completely different approach to their payment 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 payment 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 10,000 software sellers in 300 territories globally.

The Role:

As Compliance Risk Lead, you are a key member of Paddle's compliance team, reporting to our VP, Compliance. You work closely with legal, product, and operational teams to ensure Paddle remains compliant with global payments and fintech regulations as we scale rapidly. The Paddle compliance function is critical to our operations and growth, enabling innovation while maintaining trust with customers and regulators. You lead the compliance team and collaborate across teams, bringing expertise in payments compliance, risk management, and reporting. You are instrumental in building robust systems to track, analyze, and report on compliance, ensuring Paddle stays ahead in a dynamic regulatory landscape.

The role is based in the UK but global in scope, reflecting Paddle's international reach.

What you'll do:

• Team leadership: Hire, onboard, and manage compliance professionals, fostering a collaborative and high-performing team to support Paddle’s global compliance needs.
• Payments compliance: Develop and refine compliance policies and procedures to ensure adherence to global card scheme rules, consumer protection laws and payments regulation (as applicable).
• Compliance monitoring: Design and oversee simple tech-enabled monitoring programs to track compliance with internal policies and external regulations, using data-driven tools to identify trends and potential risks proactively.
• Reporting: Deliver compliance reporting for internal stakeholders at all levels (e.g. senior leadership, the Board, product teams) and external regulators, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and clarity to demonstrate Paddle’s regulatory adherence.
• Risk management: Develop and manage Paddle’s enterprise risk management program, collaborating with teams across the business to identify risks, embed controls and report on their effectiveness.
• Regulatory research: Work with the legal team to stay ahead of evolving payments, consumer and fintech regulations, advising on their impact and integrating findings into monitoring and reporting frameworks.
• Incident response: Lead investigations into high-risk complaints and/or compliance breaches, coordinating with legal and operational teams to resolve issues, and produce detailed incident reports for internal review and regulatory submi