Senior Counsel, Vendor

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. The company believes the financial industry works better for everyone when it’s fair, honest, and inclusive, and uses advanced technology and analytics to serve a broader population than other lenders.

The Legal, Compliance, and Public Affairs team combines legal, compliance, and policy expertise to guide growth, shape products, and build trust across Affirm’s ecosystem, supporting consumers, merchants, and key partners.

Affirm seeks a practical, proactive, and people-oriented transactional attorney to lead and grow the Vendor Legal team. Reporting to the Senior Director, this role manages a team, sets priorities, drives operational execution, and serves as a key stakeholder partner. The role also maintains a personal deal portfolio, modeling quality, speed, and judgment. This is an opportunity to help rebuild the Vendor Legal team from the ground up.

• Foster a collaborative, high-performance team culture grounded in accountability, continuous improvement, and a bias for action.
• Lead negotiation, drafting, and execution 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 improve playbooks, contract templates, negotiation guides, and other operational tools.
• 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.
• Serve as a proactive, strategic business partner to senior managers.
• Develop and deliver training and resources to empower business partners on routine vendor legal matters.

• JD and active membership in good standing with at least one U.S. state bar.
• 8+ years of relevant transactional experience in-house at a technology company or in a technology practice group at a top law firm.
• 2+ years of direct people management experience, including hiring, developing, and performance-managing attorneys or legal professionals.
• 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 and attention to detail.
• Track record of building or improving legal processes, playbooks, templates, or other operational tools in a high-growth environment.
• Clear, concise communication skills.
• Collaborative working style with experience guiding cross-functional teams.
• Intellectual curiosity and creative problem-solving instincts.
• Proactive, self-starter mentality with a bias for action.
• Excellent judgment and ability to make pragmatic, business-focused decisions in ambiguous situations.
• Humility, integrity, and a sense of humor.

Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.

• USA base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: $220,000 - $280,000
• USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $195,000 - $255,000

Benefits highlights include health care coverage (all premiums covered), Flexible Spending Wallets for Technology, Food, Lifestyle, and family forming expenses, competitive vacation and holiday schedules, and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP).

Visa sponsorship is not available for this position. Affirm is a remote-first company; most roles are remote and can be performed almost anywhere within the country of employment. Proximal roles may occasionally require work from an assigned Affirm office. Affirm provides reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities and considers qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance.