Assistant General Counsel - Labor & Employment

Payward - the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system.

Before you apply, we encourage you to explore our culture page to understand what drives us and how we work.

The team

Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions across the globe. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services, with products built for both individual investors and institutional clients.

This is a fully remote role, for a US-licensed attorney, preferably based on the West Coast, to join Payward’s world class in-house legal department, reporting to the Global Head of Labor & Employment.

The opportunity

• Serve as a senior member of the Labor and Employment (L&E) legal team, sharing the day-to-day workload with the Global Head of L&E and the broader team
• Work with executive leadership, existing employment counsel, Payward Experience (PX), and other teams to develop L&E practices for rapidly growing global/worldwide workforce
• Advise the company on worker classification issues, employee separations, executive compensation agreements, compensation plans, and wage-and-hour matters
• Advise the company on risk mitigation for trade secret matters, and restrictive covenants
• Support employment and labor due diligence for M&A transactions and advise on post-closing workforce integration, including harmonizing employment terms, policies, and compensation and benefits programs across acquired employee populations
• Provide expert strategic input to the business and recruiting teams on expanding Payward’s global footprint, including EOR and direct employment decisions, transitions between EOR, direct employment, and contractor models for new markets and acquired workforces, global mobility, contingent workforce, and the related worker classification risks
• Work closely with the PX team and business leaders to craft on-point policies and procedures, and to develop and deliver related manager and employee training, for a successful global/worldwide workplace
• Advise on data privacy issues affecting employees and candidates
• Support the PX team with global workplace investigations and employee relations matters involving whistleblower allegations, discrimination, and personnel performance issues
• Manage outside counsel on pre-litigation, arbitration, and local-law matters, and coordinate with litigation counsel on employment disputes
• Help build and refine AI-enabled workflows for the L&E team, such as contract review, policy drafting, and diligence, and set practical guardrails for their use
• Monitor and advise on global L&E trends including those within the cryptocurrency industry to help Company’s competitive adaptability, talent acquisition and retention, and workplace processes
• Additional duties and responsibilities as assigned

What you bring

• 10+ years of legal experience advising in the US and other jurisdictions on Employment, Labor, and Executive Compensation issues, to include in-house and law-firm experience working with companies in both high-growth scaling and mature, large-enterprise environments
• Broad international Labor and Employment background - law and drafting
• Flexibility to work hours that overlap with PX team members and Asia-Pacific colleagues
• Experience with due diligence and related ramifications when making acquisitions, including post-closing workforce integration
• Experience with compensation plans and with data privacy issues affecting employees and candidates
• Active license to practice law in at least one US State, or eligibility to practice as registered in-house counsel
• Hands-on proficiency using generative AI tools (such as Claude or ChatGPT) in day-to-day legal work, with sound judgment on verifying outputs and protecting confidentiality, privilege, and personal data
• A proactive, entrepreneurial mindset, plus an opportunity-making attitude, using the law to increase the company’s optionality, not decrease it

Nice to haves

• Interest in the crypto industry / what our company is offering to the world and why
• Experience in fintech, crypto, or other regulated financial services industries
• Experience in Asian and/or Latin American employment markets

Unless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting, applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.

Please note, applicants are permitted to redact or remove information on their resume that identifies age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment on our team, assessing candidates in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Our commitment

Payward is powered by people from around the world and we celebrate the diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions, and unique perspectives that everyone brings to the table. We hire based on merit, seeking out people with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills for the job. We encourage you to apply for roles where you don't fully meet the listed requirements, especially if you're passionate or knowledgeable about crypto.

We may ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of our hiring process. These assessments evaluate competencies relevant to the role and are applied consistently across candidates for similar positions. Results are considered alongside experience and interviews, and are not the sole basis for any employment decision.

As an equal opportunity employer, we don't tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind, whether based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.