Director, Legal Counsel

Sift is looking for a Director, Legal Counsel to join our Legal & Compliance team as the most senior attorney on the team. In this role, you will report to our Chief Financial Officer and work closely with our Chief Executive Officer. You will be responsible for a variety of transactional needs, and will contribute to our legal strategy as we grow and scale domestically and internationally. As a member of a small team, you will have significant opportunities for professional development - this is an ideal role for someone with a strong background in commercial (customer and vendor) contracts who would also like to grow in other legal areas. We are a small and proactive team that aims to execute quickly, but thoughtfully, always balancing risk with business objectives.

What We’re Looking For:

You will lead the legal function with an emphasis on commercial contracts, with responsibility to manage a contracts manager and drive our more complex transactions with Sift’s enterprise clients and partners. You will also help us think through and put the processes and tools in place to scale the function. Due to the nature of our business (online fraud prevention), the role requires a strong understanding of B2B SaaS and online data and related data protection issues. In addition, you should have an interest in growing into a more generalist role over time, as bandwidth permits, assisting in other legal areas such as product counseling, employment, international subsidiary management, M&A/fundraising, intellectual property and corporate governance.

What you’ll do:

• Lead our commercial function, focusing on customer and strategic partner agreements, and also ensuring our vendor management processes are appropriate.

• Serve as a strategic business partner to review, draft, and negotiate a range of domestic and international commercial agreements, particularly focusing on our SaaS-based online fraud prevention services for enterprise level customers and channel partners (e.g., referral, reseller, distributor, integrated marketplaces).

• Help our team develop ways in which to scale our team, whether it is through processes, playbooks, tools, training and AI automation.

• Expand into other legal substantive areas initially by managing the relationship with outside counsel (e.g., product/privacy counseling, international expansion, corporate governance, intellectual property, employment).

• Have a customer-centric, proactive approach by providing practical, decisive guidance across functions that balances business objectives and legal risk.

What makes you a strong fit:

• JD required. Bar admission and in good standing in at least one US state (bonus if CA or NY)

• Minimum of 10 years of legal experience, including with B2B SaaS commercial transactions (combination of law firm and in-house preferred)

• Solid understanding of data protection laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA/CPRA) as they apply to online data and relate to commercial transactions.

• Demonstrates a creative mindset and proactive in finding solutions / improving our team and the business generally.

• Able to pragmatically provide guidance and counsel

• Experience in online fraud prevention or FinTech a plus.

• Experience in other substantive legal areas (corporate governance, employment, litigation, intellectual property) is a plus.

A little about us:

Sift is the leading innovator in Digital Trust & Safety. Hundreds of disruptive, forward-thinking companies like trust Sift to deliver outstanding customer experience while preventing fraud and abuse.

The Sift engine powers Digital Trust & Safety by helping companies stop fraud before it happens. But it’s not just another anti-fraud platform: Sift enables businesses to tailor experiences to each customer according to the risk they pose. That means fraudsters experience friction, but honest users do not. By drawing on insights from our global network of customers, Sift allows businesses to scale, win, and thrive in the digital era.