Legal & Compliance Manager

About Level FTLevel FT is a financial wellbeing platform for UK workers. We give people access to a portion of the pay they've already earned before payday, a payroll savings account they can set up in a couple of taps, a budgeting tool and an AI financial helper. Employees reach us through our own app, through partner apps we're embedded in, and through white-label versions carrying a partner's brand.We're around 20 people, based in the City of London, and we only operate in the UK. We're Series A, and like most companies at our stage we're not yet profitable. That's worth knowing up front, because it shapes the job: everyone here owns real things, and there's nowhere to hide.We're a founding signatory of the Earned Wage Access Code of Practice and an e-money agent of an FCA registered e-money institution.The roleYou'd be joining a small Finops and Compliance/Legal team, reporting to our Head of Finance & Operations, who currently carries most of this work and is looking for someone to take it on properly. This is not a lone compliance or legal officer job. Our external counsel handle the heavy legal lifting and our ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials consultants run the audits and regular maintenance. You will have support, and you'll be expected to grow into more of it over time.Roughly speaking, the split is 40% compliance, 40% legal and 20% supporting information security. Nobody arrives able to do all three at a high level, we're looking for someone strong in one or two, curious about the others, and quick to learn.What the first six months look like1. Take over day-to-day compliance monitoring - client and supplier due diligence, transaction monitoring, and the quarterly Compliance Committee.2. Own the contract cycle for clients, partners and suppliers: first-pass review, negotiation of the standard positions, and knowing when to escalate to external counsel.3. Take on our contract stack end to end: employer and user terms and order forms, partner integration and white-label agreements, supplier contracts and DPAs. Most of it needs rethinking rather than maintaining, so you'd be shaping the templates, not just filling them in.4. Help out on the legal structure behind the product itself - how advances are originated, assigned and serviced. This includes VAT and employment legal research along with supporting our debt facility contracting and compliance. It's a genuinely interesting structuring problem.5. Work with our consultants through the ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus cycles, and keep our policies current rather than a year behind whilst ensuring internal standards are being met.6. Get properly across the regulatory landscape that we fall into and help us decide what changes and improvements are necessary.Where it goes after thatOnce you're settled, there's a supported route to holding regulated responsibilities - MLRO and Data Protection Officer among them - with training, external advice and time to get there. We won't hand you personal regulatory accountability in your first 6 months.Over time, more of the negotiation is yours to run. We'd expect you to be leading commercial deals with employer clients within your first year and taking the first view on anything that lands, deciding what we handle ourselves and what genuinely needs external counsel.There's also the structural work as we scale: new funding arrangements, entering new markets, and the corporate and regulatory workstreams that come with a scaling business in a growing industry. You'd be close to all of it.What we're looking forEssential– Around 3–6 years in compliance, legal, or a closely related risk or governance role. If you're a little either side of that, apply anyway.– Enough grounding in at least one of financial services regulation, data protection, or information security that you can hold a conversation with a specialist and know when you're out of your depth.– Clear, confident written and spoken communication - you'll be explaining obligations to engineers, external lawyers, client leadership and our CEO in the same week.– Genuine attention to detail, and the judgement to know which details actually matter.– Comfortable running your own workload in a small company where processes and documentation aren’t fully finalised yet.Nice to have– Experience in fintech, financial services, payments or e-money.– A law degree, or a compliance or information security qualification. We'll fund the next one either way.– Exposure to UK GDPR, financial crime frameworks, the FCA Consumer Duty, or ISO 27001.– You use AI tools in your day-to-day work and have a sense of where they help and where they don't. We use them heavily here, and we'd want you shaping how we use them responsibly as much as using them yourself.– A strong interest in improving financial wellbeing for UK workers, and why the alternative to what we do is usually high-cost credit.What we offer– £43,000 - £65,000 depending on experience, reviewed annually.– EMI share options - a real stake in the company, not a token one.– A 10% discretionary annual bonus.– Funded professional qualifications and study time, plus a company subscription giving you access to over 100,000 online courses.– 25 days' holiday, plus your birthday off and the usual bank holidays.– Pension salary sacrifice and a cycle to work scheme.– Full access to the Level FT app, including On-Demand Pay and Instant Access Payroll Savings.– Four days a week in our City of London office, Fridays from home, sitting next to the person who owns the risk is how you'll learn this job fastest.How to applySend your CV to rjm@levelft.com. A covering note is welcome but not required - if you write one, tell us which part of this job you'd be strongest at and which part you'd need to learn.The process is three stages: a 30-minute introductory call with the Head of Finance & Operations, in person interview with our CEO and a practical exercise with presentation, then a final conversation with other key internal stakeholders. We aim to get from first call to decision within three weeks and we'll tell you where you stand at every stage.If you need any adjustments to the process, tell us and we'll make them. And if you don't match every point above, few people will, please apply anyway. We'd rather read your application and decide than have you rule yourself out.Level FT is an equal opportunity employer. We're committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone can do their best work.