senior counsel, employment (emea)

Shopify’s Employment Legal Team focuses on the issues that affect Shopify as a global, remote-first employer. Our core goal is to ensure that Shopify remains a trusted employer that can strike a balance between compliance with legal requirements and maintaining our amazing, mission-driven work environment. 

With thousands of employees spread across the globe, there is never a dull moment on this team. Shopify marches to the beat of its own drum, and we’re faced with nuanced and exciting issues you couldn’t dream up if you tried. Working with other members of our Legal team and providing support to leadership and our global Talent team, you’ll apply your knowledge and experience to new scenarios while skillfully providing business-oriented advice in an efficient, succinct, and easy-to-understand way. No legal memos or law school lectures here! 

We’re looking for an experienced employment lawyer with a “put me in, coach” attitude and extensive post-qualification experience in continental Europe. You must be able to juggle competing priorities, directly manage high pressure situations, and be equally adept at playing a lead role on some projects and a supporting role on others. You’ll need to be energized by working in a fast-paced environment and tackling complex problems without clear answers. You need to be enough of a generalist to issue spot and triage a broad range of employment risks globally, with the ability to go deep and learn quickly when needed. This role reports to the Director, Associate General Counsel, Employment.

Responsibilities

• Providing expert advice on all aspects of employment law including workplace investigations, human rights and accommodations, employee compensation, employee mobility, employment standards and performance management/terminations. The focus will predominantly be on EMEA, but given the nature of our globally distributed workforce, some projects will require work in other jurisdictions. 
• Developing cross-functional resources that educate our stakeholders and scale the employment legal team 
• Identifying opportunities for new or improved systems and playbooks and driving change
• Updating internal policies, practices, training and documents in view of regulatory requirements and Shopify practices 
• Drafting internal policies/communications and key employment documents 
• Leading pre-litigation employment matters and partnering with outside counsel on litigation 
• Providing employment law support for M&A 
• Maintaining subject matter expertise in new and evolving areas of global employment law

Qualifications

• Full qualifications required to practice law in your jurisdiction
• Significant European employment law experience, ideally having started out at a law firm, followed by in-house experience
• Willingness to work on problems at all levels of complexity - no issue too big or too small
• Experience working on high urgency, high priority matters with executive level stakeholders that are sensitive in nature. Discretion is a must
• Proven ability to create strategy and vision, as well as manage the execution of the work
• Exceptional business judgment, analytical thinking, problem-solving and relationship-building skills
• Ability to be a self-starter who thrives without regular oversight
• Comfort navigating and making decisions at speed in the midst of ambiguity and frequent change  
• Experience managing external legal counsel
• Eagerness to learn about employment law in new jurisdictions in EMEA and beyond

Bonus Experience

• Experience working in tech and/or start-up environments. Bonus points if they were remote! 
• Experience with employment law in multiple jurisdictions