Head Product Counsel @ Leading Fintech Company

Whistler Partners; New York (NY); On-site; USD 250,000 - 400,000; Full time

Job summary

Whistler Partners is collaborating with a fast-growing New York fintech to hire a Head Product Counsel. This senior, business-facing role sits between legal, product, engineering, and leadership to help guide product decisions with regulatory clarity.

The right candidate will translate legal and regulatory considerations into practical product guidance, move quickly, and shape the company’s product direction while building internal frameworks and playbooks.

Qualifications

• J.D. required.
• 8+ years of relevant legal experience.
• Experience at the intersection of legal, product, regulatory, and technology.
• Experience advising product and engineering teams.
• In-house fintech/digital assets/DeFi/derivatives/CFTC experience preferred.
• Strong financial regulatory judgment.
• Ability to understand product design, user flows, business tradeoffs, and operational risk.
• Strong writing skills and ability to document legal reasoning clearly.
• Ability to move quickly without creating unnecessary process.
• Experience building internal frameworks, playbooks, policies, or product review processes preferred.

Responsibilities

• Review new product initiatives for legal and regulatory risk.
• Translate legal and compliance considerations into clear product requirements.
• Work directly with product managers, engineers, legal, compliance, and leadership.
• Help evaluate viable options and where modifications are needed.
• Build internal frameworks, guidelines, and decision-making tools.
• Embed legal thinking into the product development process from the beginning.
• Monitor regulatory developments and identify issues early.
• Make fast, well-reasoned calls on novel legal and product questions.
• Document legal reasoning clearly and practically.
• Support product roadmap decisions by flagging legal considerations early.

Skills

Legal judgment

Regulatory knowledge

Product counsel experience

Written communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

J.D. degree

Job description

Whistler Partners is working with a fast-growing fintech company in New York looking to add an experienced product counsel for a leadership role. This is a senior, business-facing legal role for someone who wants to sit directly between legal, product, engineering, and leadership. The company is looking for a lawyer who can help evaluate new product initiatives, translate legal and regulatory considerations into practical product guidance, and make fast, defensible calls in a highly dynamic environment. This is not a traditional legal advisory seat. The right person will be close to product decisions before they are made, not brought in at the end to clean them up.

Why This Role?

This is one of those roles that is hard to describe because there are not many like it. The company is building quickly in a complex financial regulatory environment, and legal judgment is central to how the business moves. The Head Product Counsel will be the person helping the product and engineering teams understand what can be built, what needs guardrails, and where the legal risk is manageable versus not worth taking. The best fit is someone who thinks like a product person but has real legal depth. Someone who can move quickly, document their reasoning, give clear answers, and avoid turning every product question into a research project. For a lawyer who wants to be in the room where decisions are actually made, this is a high-impact seat. You will help shape the company’s product direction, build internal frameworks, and create the legal infrastructure that lets a serious fintech company scale responsibly.

Key Responsibilities

• Review new product initiatives, features, and business priorities for legal and regulatory risk.
• Translate legal and compliance considerations into clear product requirements.
• Work directly with product managers, engineers, legal, compliance, and leadership.
• Help evaluate what is viable, what needs modification, and what should not move forward.
• Build internal frameworks, guidelines, and decision-making tools that allow teams to move faster.
• Embed legal thinking into the product development process from the beginning.
• Monitor relevant regulatory developments and identify issues before they become business problems.
• Make fast, well-reasoned calls on novel legal and product questions.
• Document legal reasoning clearly and practically.
• Support product roadmap decisions by flagging legal and regulatory considerations early.
• Help the company move quickly without sacrificing judgment, discipline, or defensibility.

About You

• J.D. required.
• 8+ years of relevant legal experience.
• Experience at the intersection of legal, product, regulatory, and technology.
• Experience advising product and engineering teams.
• Prior in-house experience at a digital assets/blockchain, fintech, technology, or similarly fast-moving company strongly preferred and bonus points for DeFi/derivatives/CFTC related experience.
• Strong financial regulatory judgment.
• Ability to understand product design, user flows, business tradeoffs, and operational risk.
• Comfort making practical calls in ambiguous situations.
• Strong writing skills and ability to document legal reasoning clearly.
• Ability to move quickly without creating unnecessary process.
• Experience building internal frameworks, playbooks, policies, or product review processes preferred.
• Strong communication skills and comfort working directly with senior business stakeholders.
• Interest in crypto and fintech, product strategy, and complex regulatory questions.

TL;DR

Fast-growing New York fintech company hiring a Head Product Counsel. Strong fit for an 8+ year lawyer with product/regulatory counseling experience who wants to sit close to product, engineering, and leadership, make real-time legal calls, and help shape what the business can build. Best for someone with strong product instincts, financial regulatory judgment, and the ability to move quickly without over-lawyering the answer.

About Whistler Partners

Matchmakers, Not Headhunters

Whistler Partners is a boutique matchmaking firm focused on counseling the best and the brightest attorneys over the course of their careers. We believe that the right move comes from working closely with talent to curate their long-term career paths. When it comes to career advice, what matters is not the size of the agency but the strength of your individual recruiter. We readily admit that we are elite and only work with the best – after all, a little elitism is okay when it comes to your career.

Employers love us because we are picky about whom we represent, and attorneys love us because we get them their dream jobs.