Counsel II, Vendor
Summary of Relevant Experience
Summary of Experience – Counsel II, Vendor @ Affirm
- JD/MBA-credentialed attorney with four years of progressive in-house legal experience spanning ERISA, HIPAA, employment law, and healthcare compliance at multiemployer funds and a Fortune 500 insurer, providing a regulatory foundation directly applicable to fintech and financial services vendor contracting.
- In-house benefits counsel who managed outside counsel, led complex litigation, and supported M&A due diligence, demonstrating ability to handle high deal volume with sound judgment across cross-functional stakeholder environments.
- Compliance and governance practitioner who built and administered regulatory compliance programs for large plan populations, reflecting process-design and operational improvement skills transferable to vendor playbooks and contract workflow development.
- Commercial legal generalist positioned for senior counsel roles in regulated industries, with demonstrated experience advising C-suite executives and translating complex legal requirements into practical, business-aligned guidance.
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Why this is a fit
This is a vendor/commercial transactional role requiring 5+ years of technology contracting, SaaS/cloud agreements, and data privacy frameworks (CCPA, GDPR) — your background is deeply in ERISA, employee benefits, and HIPAA compliance, with no evident transactional commercial contracting experience, making the function a poor match despite fintech industry alignment and remote location.
About the role
Affirm is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly, giving consumers the flexibility to buy now and pay later without any hidden fees or compounding interest. About the Legal, Compliance, and Public Affairs team The Legal, Compliance, and Public Affairs team is a group of dedicated professionals committed to helping Affirm scale, innovate, and provide outstanding products for consumers, merchants, and key partners. We combine legal, compliance, and policy expertise to guide growth, shape products, and build trust across our ecosystem. Our work spans multiple professional disciplines and provides the foundation for Affirm’s mission to deliver honest financial products. About the role Affirm seeks a practical, proactive, and people-oriented transactional attorney to join our Vendor Legal team. You are pragmatic, solutions-oriented, and comfortable balancing risk with business velocity in a high-growth, technology-driven environment. You will partner closely with Procurement, Financial Partners, and other cross‑functional teams to negotiate a range of vendor transactions. In addition to managing a busy deal pipeline, you will help design and improve processes, playbooks, and programs that increase efficiency and deal velocity so the team can scale with company growth. What you'll do Lead negotiation, drafting, and execution of a wide range of vendor agreements, including technology services, cloud services, SaaS, data platform, contractor, marketing/creative, lease, and payment processing engagements. Manage a high volume of deals with speed and sound judgment. Design, implement, and continuously improve playbooks, contract templates, negotiation guides, and workflows that enable the team to operate efficiently at scale. Identify friction points and build solutions that reduce cycle time without sacrificing quality. Work closely with procurement, financial partnerships, engineering, product, finance, information security, privacy, and other teams to provide clear, practical guidance. Serve as a proactive, strategic business partner to stakeholders across the organization. Develop and deliver training and resources that empower business partners to self-serve on routine commercial legal matters, increasing team capacity and reducing bottlenecks. What we look for JD and active membership in good standing with at least one U.S. state bar. 5+ years of relevant transactional experience in-house at a technology company or in a technology practice group at a top law firm. Exceptional drafting skills. Experience in fintech, payments, or financial services. Experience supporting global or multi-jurisdictional transactions (e.g., Canada, US, UK/EU, Australia). Strong working knowledge of data protection and privacy regimes such as CCPA, GDPR, APPs, PIPEDA, and GLBA. Proven ability to manage high deal volume while maintaining quality, consistency, and attention to detail. A track record of building or improving legal processes, playbooks, templates, or other operational tools in a high-growth environment. Clear, concise communication skills, with the ability to distill complex legal and commercial issues into plain language. Collaborative working style, with experience guiding cross-functional teams toward practical, win-win outcomes. Intellectual curiosity and creative problem-solving instincts: you learn new products and business models quickly and enjoy finding solutions to novel challenges. Proactive, self-starter mentality with a bias for action. Excellent judgment, and ability to make timely, pragmatic, and business-focused decisions in ambiguous situations with imperfect information. Humility, integrity and a sense of humor; you take your work seriously, but not yourself. Base Pay Grade - M Equity Grade - 6 Employees new to Affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. Affirm focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location