Employment Counsel, Americas

Airwallex; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex is seeking an Employment Counsel for the Americas, based in San Francisco, New York, or Seattle. You will partner with our People & Talent team on risk areas including terminations, investigations, employee relations, and regulatory compliance across 20+ markets.

You will own US employment law, coordinate advice with external counsel, and help build scalable playbooks for contractor classifications, remote work, and cross-border compliance as the company scales globally.

Qualifications

• J.D. degree and active bar admission in at least one US state (CA, WA, or NY preferred).
• 5+ years of employment law experience at a top law firm or in-house legal department.
• Experience coordinating employment law advice across multiple jurisdictions.
• Experience leading workplace investigations and managing disputes/charges.
• Ability to translate complex legal issues into clear guidance for non-legal audiences.

Responsibilities

• Advise People & Talent and business leaders on the full employee lifecycle (hiring, contracts, performance, leaves, compensation).
• Lead workplace investigations and sensitive employee matters end-to-end.
• Draft, refresh and own employment-related policies and templates.

Skills

Employment law

Legal counseling

Cross-border advice

Policy drafting

Workplace investigations

Education

J.D. degree

Tools

External counsel mgmt

Job description

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 676,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 676,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.

About The Team

Legal & Licensing at Airwallex sits at the heart of the decisions that shape how Airwallex grows. This team backs the visionary builders transforming Airwallex into a generational financial company, sharing the journey of product development and sales alongside our business partners. You’ll help shape a global licensing footprint most fintechs wish they had, while making sure our brand and data architecture stay best-in‑class for customers entering the agentic economy and ready for its regulatory demands. The hard part is helping the business move fast on product, revenue, and new‑market expansion without compromising the regulatory discipline that protects the moat.

What You’ll Do

You’ll be the Employment Counsel for Airwallex in the Americas, and a hands‑on partner to our People & Talent team on the issues that carry the most risk: terminations, workplace investigations, employee relations, and the policies that govern how 3,000+ people across 20+ markets work. You'll own US employment law directly and coordinate advice across other jurisdictions with our external counsel panel. Because Airwallex operates through licensed entities in most of its markets, you'll also work on questions that a generalist employment lawyer rarely sees: contractor and EOR classification across borders, remote work and mobility exposure, and conduct and remuneration matters in regulated entities. This role suits someone who wants to build the playbooks and templates a scaling employment function runs on, not just answer tickets.

This role is based in San Francisco, New York, or Seattle.

Responsibilities

• Advise the People & Talent team and business leaders on the full employee lifecycle, including hiring, contracts and variations, performance management, accommodations, leaves, wage and hour compliance, and terminations.
• Lead workplace investigations and sensitive employee matters end-to-end, working with the cross-functional People and Legal working group.
• Draft, refresh, and own employment-related policies and templates.
• Manage employment disputes, agency charges, and litigation, instructing and controlling external counsel and associated legal spend.
• Coordinate multi-jurisdiction employment advice across APAC, EMEA and the Americas, including contractor and employer-of-record arrangements, cross-border remote work and mobility risk.
• Advise on compensation, benefits, and equity matters in a private company context.

Who You Are

We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.

Minimum Qualifications

• J.D. degree (or foreign equivalent) and active membership in at least one US state bar (California, Washington, or New York preferred)
• 5+ years of employment law experience at a leading law firm and/or in-house legal department, with demonstrated employment counseling experience beyond litigation alone
• Experience advising on and coordinating employment law advice across multiple jurisdictions
• Experience leading workplace investigations and managing employment disputes, agency charges, or tribunal matters
• The ability to translate complex legal and risk issues into clear, succinct, and actionable guidance for non-legal audiences
• High motivation and the ability to operate independently and pivot quickly within a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at a fintech, payments company, or other highly regulated business
• Experience with contractor classification, employer-of-record populations, or cross-border remote work and permanent establishment risk
• A learner's mentality: you are consistently looking to take on new and diverse challenges and expand your knowledge and practice beyond your current areas of expertise
• Comfort operating across time zones with a globally distributed team, including colleagues based in APAC and EMEA.

Equal opportunity

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

Compensation Range: $130K - $200K