Counsel, Institutional Legal - Financing

Ready to be pushed beyond what you think you’re capable of? At Coinbase, our mission is to increase economic freedom in the world. It’s a massive, ambitious opportunity that demands the best of us, every day, as we build the emerging onchain platform — and with it, the future global financial system. To achieve our mission, we’re seeking a very specific candidate. We want someone who is passionate about our mission and who believes in the power of crypto and blockchain technology to update the financial system. We want someone who is eager to leave their mark on the world, who relishes the pressure and privilege of working with high caliber colleagues, and who actively seeks feedback to keep leveling up. We want someone who will run towards, not away from, solving the company’s hardest problems.

Our work culture is intense and isn’t for everyone. But if you want to build the future alongside others who excel in their disciplines and expect the same from you, there’s no better place to be. While many roles at Coinbase are remote-first, we are not remote-only. In-person participation is required throughout the year. Team and company-wide offsites are held multiple times annually to foster collaboration, connection, and alignment. Attendance is expected and fully supported.

Coinbase has built the world’s leading compliant cryptocurrency platform serving over 68 million accounts in more than 100 countries. With multiple successful products, and our vocal advocacy for blockchain technology, we have played a major part in mainstream awareness and adoption of cryptocurrency. We are proud to offer an entire suite of products that are helping build the cryptoeconomy and increase economic freedom around the world.

There are a few things we look for across all hires we make at Coinbase, regardless of role or team. First, we look for signals that a candidate will thrive in a culture like ours, where we default to trust, embrace feedback, disrupt ourselves, and expect sustained high performance because we play as a championship team. Second, we expect all employees to commit to our mission-focused approach to our work. Finally, we seek people with the desire and capacity to build and share expertise in the frontier technologies of crypto and blockchain, in whatever way is most relevant to their role.

The Legal Counsel (Institutional Legal, Financing) role will be based in the US or UK working as part of the Institutional Legal team covering US and international markets and professional trading clients including banks, brokers, hedge funds, market makers, corporates and other professional traders. The team consists of a small but highly experienced group of lawyers from a combination of traditional finance and fintech backgrounds. The role reports into the head of the team and covers institutional products including prime brokerage, exchange, trading and custody, derivatives and financing products.

We’re looking for a lawyer with solid product development, regulatory and negotiation skills preferably developed within the traditional prime brokerage, securities financing, and/or derivatives sectors. A sense of curiosity, flexibility and adventure combined with the desire to make an impact at the intersection of crypto and traditional global markets is essential.

What you’ll be doing (ie. job duties):

• Negotiate first-of-a-kind, highly-tailored agreements with strategic partners and sophisticated counterparties in the institutional financing space with specific focus on our trade finance, portfolio margining, bilateral lending, agency lending, and collateral products.
• Provide full product life-cycle counseling for a variety of global prime brokerage, custody and derivatives related products, and practical advice on associated legal issues and risks, complex agreement structures and company policies in a risk-tolerant, but compliance-oriented environment.
• Stay abreast of and advise on digital currency and blockchain technology legal and regulatory issues.
• Lead and assist with complex and global cross-functional efforts, driving and ensuring cross-functional alignment with other stakeholders (Institutional Sales, Business Development, Product/Engineering, Finance/Tax, Compliance).
• Effectively collaborate with those same cross-functional teams and legal colleagues to solve problems, build partnerships, and close deals quickly.
• Proactively solve problems for the business as they plan and execute on an aggressive global growth plan, develop scaled strategies for addressing risk in business-centric ways and build commercial processes that allow the business flexibility and freedom to move quickly.
• Look around corners and creatively solve problems for the business as they plan, build, and execute their transactional and product roadmap.
• Be a business partner, not just a lawyer.

What we look for in you (ie. job requirements):

• Licensed attorney with at least 4 years experience working in a financial services institution in the US (e.g. bank, e-money issuer, payment service firm, broker dealer / asset manager) or in a law firm supporting such clients.
• Strong negotiation skills and ability to review and negotiate financial agreements (e.g. prime brokerage, financing/lending, collateral management, and derivatives documentation).
• Interest in digital currency and blockchain technology.
• Experience working and leading with cross-functional, globally located teams.
• Familiarity with US regulatory regimes applicable to financial instruments.
• Comfortable challenging the status quo and preconceived notions of what is possible.
• Excellent judgment, analytical rigor, clear communication, and business pragmatism.
• Top-notch analytical skills with experience owning projects from concept to finish.
• Creativity, comfort and experience with oral solutions that help scale financial services businesses and technology solutions that help scale practices.
• Sound and practical business judgment.
• Intellectual curiosity and flexibility.
• Attention to detail and focus on process ownership from start to finish.
• Team-oriented and collaborative.

Nice to haves:

• Experience working with product teams launching fintech, financial services, investment or similar products.
• Experience registering and perfecting collateral arrangements.
• Experience with bankruptcy rules and regulations.
• Experience with cross-border analysis.
• Experience with Edgar and analyzing regulatory filings.

Commitment to Equal Opportunity: Coinbase is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other basis protected by applicable law. Coinbase will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.