Legal Officer

Swan is Europe's embedded banking specialist. We empower software companies to embed banking features like accounts, cards, and payments directly into their products, under their own brand.Swan processes over €1.5 billion in monthly transactions for more than 150 companies—like Pennylane, Indy, Agicap, Libeo, and Lucca. Founded in 2019, the company has received growth capital from leading investors such as Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Bpifrance and Eight Roads. Swan is a principal member of Mastercard and a licensed financial institution, regulated by the French banking authority (ACPR).

Our mission

Banking belongs in business software

Many software companies already serve small businesses incredibly well: helping them send invoices, run payroll, manage inventory, and more. They're on a mission to become the central hub for managing every aspect of business life.

But when it comes to financial workflows, there's still a gap. Too many critical tasks like managing cash flow, tracking payments, or reconciling accounts happen outside the software, across spreadsheets, email threads, banking portals.

It's a missed opportunity. Business software shouldn't just record financial activity — it should run it.

To learn more about us: About Swan ; Our story.

Job description

Swan is looking for a Legal Officer to join the brand new Legal team and help us build our legal set-up on payment and business regulation. Our legal team keeps our banking features safe and secure, and always has to think about the best way to combine multiple areas: business, legal, partners and more. Swan is both a technology company and payment services company, and our legal team makes these pieces fit together

Reporting directly to the VP Legal, you will have a critical role in developing and managing contract processes, ensuring efficient negotiations and collaboration with the compliance team. You will be responsible for creating and streamlining contract workflows to support our business objectives and risk management strategies. Working closely notably with sales, product, and IT teams, you will design negotiation protocols and frameworks that enhance alignment with business goals while ensuring legal soundness.

Your mission

• Drafting and Negotiation: Draft, review, and negotiate complex commercial contracts (partnerships, suppliers, clients) in both English and French, ensuring each agreement aligns with our business objectives and legal requirements.

• Contract Lifecycle Management: Manage contracts from initiation to renewal or termination, establishing and maintaining key milestones, timelines, and alerts for contract expiration or amendments.

• Process Development in Negotiations: Develop standardized negotiation frameworks and processes to streamline contract discussions, minimize negotiation cycles, and ensure consistent compliance with legal and business requirements.

• Compliance & Watch: Ensure all contracts and business practices comply with relevant laws and regulations, including data protection (GDPR), payment regulations, and anti-money laundering (AML) standards, incorporating best practices in legal compliance.

• Risk Assessment and Management: Identify, assess and mitigate contractual risks and manage dispute resolution processes when required.

• Internal legal business partner: Advise and train operational teams (sales, product, tech, etc.) on legal and contractual matters, fostering a string legal culture and supporting informed business decision.

• Knowledge & Document Management: Implement and improve systems for contract archiving, document management, and knowledge sharing within the legal team and across the company.

Preferred Experience

You're a great match if:

• You have a master's degree in French law, ideally with a focus on banking, financial or business law; CAPA is a plus

• You have around 10 years of experience as a legal officer, ideally in a tech/fintech, regulated, or fast-paced environment; previous exposure to international legal topics or multi-jurisdictional work.

• You have solid expertise in contract law, compliance (GDPR, payment…) and risk management

• You have advanced negotiation skills and a solution-oriented mindset

• You have strong analytical, organizational, and prioritization skills, able to manage multiple projects in a dynamic setting

• You have excellent written and verbal communication skills in both English and French; ability to explain complex legal topics simply.

• You are collaborative, pragmatic, open-minded, humble and proactive.

• Our ideal teammate: Empathetic. Skilled. Frank. We love to challenge each other, and we leave our egos at the door.

It's okay if you don't tick all the boxes — don't let imposter syndrome prevent you from applying  

Swan is committed to providing a caring work environment for all employees, regardless of age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, or belief.

When it comes to recruitment, we're interested in your work experience, skills, and overall personality. Because diversity makes the workplace stronger and is necessary for Swan's success, we are intensifying efforts to incorporate concrete actions to help us improve in this area.

 Perks of being a Swanee:

• Holidays : 25 days + RTT

• Meal Vouchers: We provide a Swile card to cover your meals on work days.

• Transport: Monthly mobility package for employees. In accordance with the company agreement for sustainable mobilities, you can now use your mobility package to pay for alternative commuting modes.

• Health insurance (mutuelle): Alan. This is Swan's health and welfare insurance.

• Sports: Thanks to our partnership with Classpass and Gymlib, you can enjoy advantageous discounts on subscriptions. They offer a wide range of sports activities as well as wellness activities.

• Hybrid remote policy: We offer the possibility of working from home for 2 days per week.

• Offsite: Once a year we gather to reconnect, deep-dive into big topics, and relax.

• This isn't a perk, it should be the rule, but diversity and inclusion are important at Swan. We're working hard to get better every day.

Our values:

Swan's core values guide our actions daily. Individually, they may seem obvious, but together, they form a unique culture.

Simplicity: Leonardo Da Vinci said: "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." If something's convoluted or confusing, we work extra hard to break it down. - Making complex things simple is what we do.

Long Term: We always play the long game, whether it's to support our partners in their growth journey, or make tangible commitments to climate action.

Excellence: We are a team of experts who consistently go all out to create pixel-perfect banking services and exceed our partners' expectations— whatever it takes.

Be Human: We believe in the power of kindness and the importance of acting with integrity. But embracing our humanity extends beyond interpersonal interactions, it means caring about greater issues that affect our planet.

You can find out more about our culture.

• A 30-min video call with our Talent Acquisition Manager, to get to know you, understand your career expectations and answer your questions

• 60 mins with your future manager

• Business Case

• Peer Interview to meet relevant internal stakeholders

• Short interview with your N+2, our CEO