Senior Product Counsel - Lending

Column • San Francisco, CA

6d • $210,000 - $300,000

About The Position

For companies building financial technology and transforming the financial services space, the biggest bottleneck to their growth and innovation is often the underlying banks and infrastructure stack they rely on. We have spent our careers founding and scaling companies like Plaid, Square, Meta, Blend, and Affirm, and have seen this problem firsthand — builders and developers needing to partner with traditional banks, and creating API and abstraction layers over the patchwork that is the bank, its core, and many other vendors. All of this results in a complex (and often expensive) banking supply chain involving a user, fintech, BaaS middleware provider, bank, core and the Federal Reserve.

At Column, we set out to simplify and fix this. We are a bank and a software company built from the ground up, offering builders and developers technology-forward banking solutions that cut out the hundreds of vendors, middleware providers, and abstraction layers. This means a safer, more transparent, and less costly banking supply chain. Come build with us!

As a Senior Product Counsel supporting Column’s Lending business, you will be responsible for providing strategic counsel for Column’s credit partnerships — including consumer and commercial loan origination, lines of credit, loan participations, and other bank-fintech lending partnerships. This isn’t a role where you’ll be toiling in obscurity – you’ll be a key strategic partner working directly with Go-to-Market, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, and Finance teams to drive product development and expansion. Your unique perspective, drawn from past experience launching lending products, will be invaluable as we navigate complex regulatory environments while maintaining our competitive edge.

Unlike typical in-house counsel positions, this role offers true ownership. You’ll be the key decision-maker on product legal strategy, with direct access to leadership and the ability to shape Column’s approach to regulatory compliance and product development. Each fintech partnership is an opportunity to design new banking products, and you’ll not only have a seat at the table, you’ll be responsible for driving strategy and execution from start to finish.

This is a hands-on and customer-facing role where you will work closely with fintech partners. You’ll collaborate with our partners to navigate the consumer protection frameworks that define bank-fintech lending relationships, ensuring that each program is built on a defensible legal and regulatory foundation while providing flexibility for modern product offerings. When our fintech partners approach us with rapid-fire ideas for new features, delivery channels, product structures, and UX changes, you will be the one to collaboratively chart a path to launch. You will move fast, with bank-grade rigor and fintech-level speed.

This role reports directly to the Bank’s General Counsel.

Requirements

• Currently licensed in a U.S. state, J.D. or equivalent, with 7–15+ years as a practicing lawyer; priority given to candidates with both law firm experience and in-house experience at a fintech and/or a financial institution.
• Deep expertise counseling product teams on banking infrastructure and embedded finance solutions, with particular depth in consumer and/or commercial lending regulatory frameworks.
• Comprehensive knowledge of the regulatory framework governing banking partnerships and fintech services.
• Deep working knowledge of TILA/Regulation Z, ECOA/Regulation B, FCRA, UDAAP, state usury laws, rate exportation and valid-when-made frameworks, state licensing regimes (servicing and collections), BSA/AML, and true lender doctrine.
• Experience structuring agreements and advising on bank-fintech lending partnerships.
• Familiarity with loan sale, participation, and servicing agreements
• A strong desire to work at the center of fintech/bank innovation, coupled with comfort and experience making fast, sound, and supported risk decisions, especially where the legal landscape isn’t black and white.

Responsibilities

• Drive Product Strategy & Innovation: Be the strategic legal voice enabling product innovation across our credit and lending portfolio. Partner closely with business teams and fintech partners from ideation through launch, anticipating challenges and architecting creative solutions that balance business needs with regulatory requirements. Advise on credit product structuring, and the legal implications of new lending features and partnership models.
• Own Regulatory Architecture: Build and evolve regulatory frameworks for existing and new products. Leverage your deep expertise in TILA, ECOA, UDAAP, FCRA, state usury and licensing laws, the evolving EWA space, federal preemption, and true lender risk. Partner with compliance and risk teams to develop scalable approaches that protect the business while enabling growth.
• Lead Subject Matter Expertise: Be the go-to authority on legal and regulatory requirements impacting the credit and lending business lines. Share insights on regulatory developments and their practical implications. Help establish Column as a thought leader in banking infrastructure.
• Structure Bank-Fintech Lending Partnerships: Lead the legal structuring of loan agreements, line of credit products, EWA lending and non-lending offerings, and BNPL partnerships. Draft and review key customer-facing terms and marketing materials, structure onboarding flows and applications, determine BSA/AML requirements, conduct true lender analyses, and own every legal detail of rolling out a new Column-backed product. Work closely with engineering to design a flow-of-funds model and reflect that product structure in legal documentation.
• Leverage Technology & AI: Embrace and drive the adoption of technology — including AI and automation tools — to increase the efficiency, speed, and scalability of legal workflows. Identify opportunities to use AI and partner with engineering teams to build legal tooling that gives Column a structural advantage.
• Scale Operations: Design and implement legal processes that can scale with hypergrowth. Improve partner onboarding efficiency while maintaining robust compliance. Build repeatable frameworks that enable the business to move faster. Develop template loan program agreements, disclosure packages, and servicing frameworks that accelerate new partnership launches.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision plans, including options that are 100% covered by Column for you and 100% covered for your dependents!
• Comprehensive family planning and fertility benefits via partnership with Carrot, including reimbursement of up to $20,000 in qualified expenses
• FSA and HSA account options to enable use of pre-tax money for medical and dependent care expenses
• 401k plan, including self-directed brokerage options
• Flexible time-off policy - take the time off that you want and need to relax and recharge
• 100% paid parental leave, including 16 weeks for birth mothers, 12 weeks for primary caregivers, and 8 weeks for secondary caregivers
• Catered lunches and dinners for SF employees
• Commuter benefits
• Regular team building events, including annual offsite

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed