---
title: 'Director, Product Legal (EmFi & Payments) at Airwallex'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-product-legal-emfi-payments-airwallex-united-states-san-francisco-ca-52yfykdmchjj'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-11'
---

# Director, Product Legal (EmFi & Payments) at Airwallex

- **Company:** [Airwallex](https://feeny.ai/companies/airwallex)
- **Location:** United States / San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-28
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/airwallex/0b159038-01b5-4a32-bd39-ba55573f0fdf

## Job description

## About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 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 2,700 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](https://www.airwallex.com/en-us/operating-principles) to see it in full.

## How you'll make impact

Product Legal is an embedded partner to Airwallex’s product organization, helping shape regulated financial products from early ideation through launch. In this role, you’ll lead the legal support for Embedded Finance, Lending, Issuing, and Payments for Platforms while staying close to the highest-impact product and commercial matters.

- Lead the product-legal team supporting Embedded Finance, Lending, Issuing, and Payments for Platforms, managing two direct reports while remaining closely involved in the highest-impact matters.
- Structure novel Embedded Finance and Lending models for strategic enterprise customers, partnering with Enterprise Sales, Product, Financial Partnerships, Risk, Regulatory Compliance, Engineering, and bank partners.
- Provide practical, risk-weighted guidance on U.S. and international payments and financial services laws, including money transmission, AML/BSA, Reg E, UDAAP, card network rules, state licensing, and bank-partner and BaaS requirements.
- Advise Product and Engineering from early ideation through PRD review, regulatory structuring, terms drafting, and go-to-market readiness for new products and markets.
- Draft, review, and negotiate financial partnership agreements and platform terms and conditions with banks, payment processors, card networks, and other financial partners, including managing terms updates across jurisdictions.
- Build scalable legal playbooks, approved use-case repositories, and reference materials that help Product, Commercial Legal, and Sales move faster on recurring deal patterns.
- Coordinate with Regulatory Legal, Data & Privacy, Risk, FCC, Commercial Legal, Global Expansion & Licensing, and regional product legal leads on product launches, GRC escalations, and regulatory exam responses.
- Serve as the U.S.-based point person for Embedded Finance, own the Lending portfolio, provide secondary support for Issuing, and help the Product Legal team scale its impact beyond one-to-one deal support.
- Help Airwallex deliver Product Legal Readiness for prioritized launches across markets including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the UAE.
- Support customer-facing legal-to-legal discussions and bring deep fintech regulatory credibility to complex commercial opportunities.

You'll work from our San Francisco or New York office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

## What we're looking for

Essentials

- A JD or equivalent law degree and active bar membership in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
- 10+ years of legal experience in payments, fintech, financial services, or a closely related regulated industry, including substantial in-house experience.
- Deep expertise in U.S. payments and financial services regulation, including money transmission, AML/BSA, Reg E, UDAAP, card network rules, state licensing, and bank-partner or BaaS program requirements.
- A strong fintech lens and the ability to make sound decisions when regulations are evolving, fact patterns are novel, and information is incomplete.
- Experience serving as an embedded legal partner to Product and Engineering teams from ideation through launch in a fast-moving fintech or financial services environment.
- A track record of structuring and negotiating complex agreements with banks, payment processors, card networks, or other financial partners.
- Strong drafting skills, including financial partnership agreements, platform terms and conditions, consumer terms, and related product documentation.
- The ability to translate complex technical and regulatory matters into clear, practical advice for business partners and senior stakeholders.
- Experience leading, mentoring, or developing lawyers or other legal professionals, with the judgment to balance people leadership and hands-on product counseling.
- A collaborative, commercially minded approach to partnering with Sales, Product, Financial Partnerships, Risk, Compliance, Engineering, and other cross-functional teams.

## Preferred

- Experience at a top-tier law firm combined with in-house experience at a fintech, payments company, or technology company offering regulated financial products.
- Experience with multi-jurisdictional product launches, including European payments regulation such as PSD2 and e-money frameworks.
- Experience with Visa or Mastercard rules, issuing programs, consumer financial products, regulatory exams, or bank-partner audits.
- A track record of building legal playbooks, scalable frameworks, or internal knowledge resources that reduce friction and accelerate product development.
- Experience supporting embedded finance, Payments for Platforms, Lending, or Issuing products.
- Comfort using legal technology or AI tools to improve legal workflows.

You'll thrive here if

- You're comfortable owning the roadmap yourself.
- You own the outcome and you don't wait for permission to fix what's broken.
- You're comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and moving quickly anyway.
- You communicate clearly and directly across cultures, and you're thoughtful about how context shifts meaning across borders.
- You can advocate hard for a position, then fully support the team's direction once a call is made.

Learn more about your team Legal sits at the heart of the decisions that shape how Airwallex grows. This team backs the builders transforming us into a generational financial company, working alongside product, sales, and business partners every step of the way. You'll help shape a global licensing footprint most fintechs wish they had, while keeping our brand and data architecture best-in-class for customers entering the agentic economy and its regulatory demands. The hard part is helping the business move fast on product, revenue, and new-market expansion without compromising the discipline that protects the moat. It's a team for lawyers, strategists, and licensing specialists with commercial instincts, sharp judgment, and an obsession with customer-first outcomes. If you want to guide executive decisions and help build the licensing, structure, and judgment behind what comes next, this is where legal has real leverage. Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party Recruiters To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @[airwallex.com](http://airwallex.com) email address. Please apply only through [careers.airwallex.com](http://careers.airwallex.com) or our official LinkedIn page. Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.

## 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.

## About Airwallex

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Airwallex is a financial technology company building a unified global payments and banking platform that helps businesses manage cross-border payments, treasury, spend, and financial operations through proprietary infrastructure, software, and AI.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series G)
- **Headquarters**: Dual headquarters in Singapore and San Francisco, USA; founded in Melbourne, Australia
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Jack Zhang (CEO), Lucy Liu, Max Li, Xijing Dai, and Ron Li

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Financial Services / Payments / Fintech Infrastructure
- Target customers: B2B, primarily serving SMBs, scaling enterprises, digital platforms, and marketplaces globally
- Mission or purpose statement: "Build the future of global banking" — they aim to replace legacy, fragmented banking systems with a borderless, intelligent, real-time financial operating system for modern businesses.

## Products & Services
- **[Business Accounts]**: Multi-currency global accounts to receive, hold, and manage funds in 20+ currencies, with local account details for key markets.
- **[Payments]**: Global payment acceptance via 160+ local payment methods, low-code checkout, and programmatic payout capabilities to 200+ countries.
- **[Spend / Corporate Cards]**: Multi-currency corporate and employee cards with customisable spend controls, designed for global teams.
- **[Expense Management]**: A platform to track, control, and reconcile global business expenses, including employee reimbursements.
- **[Billing & Subscription Management]**: A billing platform for usage-based and subscription pricing models, supporting AI companies and complex revenue workflows.
- **[Platform APIs]**: API-first infrastructure enabling businesses to embed financial services (accounts, payments, FX, card issuing) into their own products.
- **[FX & Treasury]**: Interbank foreign exchange rates and tools to intelligently manage currency risk across markets.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: US$11 billion (latest valuation in 2025, following a fresh investment round).
- **Key Metric**: US$1.8 billion in total funding raised; Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) surpassed US$1 billion by 2025.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Series G investors include prominent global venture capital firms (specific names not listed in source but backed by top-tier VCs); serves over 200,000 businesses including TikTok, Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, and SHEIN.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - US$287 billion in global payments processed (USD).
  - 92% of transfers settled same-day, 50% processed instantly.
  - Over 85 financial licenses and registrations globally.
  - Team of ~2,300 people across 27 offices internationally.
  - Dual-headquarters model (Singapore + San Francisco) adopted in 2025 to support next phase of growth.

## Competitive Advantages
- Proprietary, API-first infrastructure built from scratch (not riding legacy banking rails), enabling faster, cheaper, and more transparent cross-border transactions.
- Unified platform combining banking, payments, spend management, billing, and FX — reducing the need for multiple vendors.
- Deep AI integration across the platform to automate financial operations and provide intelligent insights.
- Extensive regulatory licensing (85+ licenses) across major markets, creating a high barrier to entry.
- Strong network effects: serves both direct businesses and platforms/marketplaces that embed Airwallex into their offerings.

## Strategic Focus
- Continue scaling the platform to support the rapid growth of AI-native companies and usage-based business models (highlighted by the launch of their global billing platform).
- Expand the dual-headquarters presence to tap into the largest tech talent markets (San Francisco and Singapore).
- Invest heavily in AI to build "interconnected, intelligent financial systems where money, data, and decisions move together."
- Deepen product capabilities to automate financial operations end-to-end for global businesses.

## Why Work Here
- High-growth, ambitious environment: described as "the most ambitious work of your career" by the company; founded in 2015 and already processing $287B in payments.
- Global impact and scale: work on infrastructure used by 200,000+ businesses, from startups to enterprises like TikTok and SHEIN.
- Hybrid/office culture: 27 offices globally (Melbourne, Singapore, San Francisco, London, Shanghai, Amsterdam, and more) offering opportunities to work across teams and locations.
- Engineering-driven culture: heavy emphasis on building proprietary technology, AI, and developer-first products.
- Notable perks: opportunity to work on a modern financial stack, exposure to cutting-edge AI/Fintech intersection, and a diverse, international team of "2,200 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech."

## Sources
1. [airwallex.com - Who We Are](https://www.airwallex.com/en-eu/who-we-are)
2. [airwallex.com - Global Platform](https://www.airwallex.com/global)
3. [careers.airwallex.com](https://careers.airwallex.com/)
4. [LinkedIn - Airwallex](https://www.linkedin.com/company/airwallex)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com - Airwallex](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/airwallex)

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