Compliance Lead

Team Overview

Within the Shopify Legal Team, the Compliance Team ensures that Shopify meets its regulatory and contractual commitments while staying agile enough to support growth and innovation. Our team's mission is to design and enforce policies and procedures that keep Shopify compliant with applicable laws so our merchants, partners, and third parties can trust us.

As Shopify continues to expand its suite of financial products and services we're scaling our Compliance Program to match increased obligations. We're strengthening our program across lending compliance, AML / BSA, and other areas, all in service of making commerce better for everyone.

Role Overview

Our Compliance team is looking for a curious, organized, and detail-oriented Compliance Lead to join the team, working within 2 hours of the Central Time Zone. In this role, you will serve as the primary compliance point of contact for Shopify's most strategic financial partner relationships. Keeping our partners satisfied requires running a rigorous, well-executed compliance program and the communication skills to manage those relationships directly. This role requires excellent program execution and external partner management - and we need someone who's genuinely strong at both.

Our goal is well-defined: we’re building a smarter, more automated, AI-first Compliance Program. You will be responsible for achieving this, while also supporting teammates striving for the same.

Our ideal candidate has deep experience in financial services compliance (bonus if lending compliance and/or at a FinTech), great instincts, strong program management skills, has working experience leveraging AI to automate workflow, and knows how to execute effectively at speed.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as the primary compliance point of contact for Shopify's key banking partner relationships, managing obligations, responding to audit requests, and maintaining strong, trust-based partnerships

• Lead and execute core Compliance Program activities: testing & monitoring, reporting, AML/BSA and lending compliance, risk assessments, and audits

• Develop and maintain playbooks, policies, and other resources to support our compliance, sanctions, and AML programs across various products

• Lead projects that improve program efficiency and reduce compliance risk across our products and processes, using an AI-first approach

• Partner cross-functionally with product, legal, engineering, and operations to advise on compliance risks and support new product launches

• Provide support to team members supporting other financial partners and products

• Identify and clearly escalate program gaps, regulatory changes, and vulnerabilities - early and with solutions in hand

Qualifications

• Deep experience building, executing, and/or optimizing compliance programs, ideally in a FinTech or tech environment

• Demonstrated experience managing external relationships with financial partners, regulators, or auditors - not just running an internal program

• Strong working knowledge of AML, KYC, and sanctions compliance frameworks

• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills - you can represent Shopify clearly and confidently to external parties

• Strong time management and prioritization skills - you thrive managing multiple workstreams with competing deadlines

• A creative, data-driven approach to problem-solving with strong analytical skills

Nice to Have

• Experience with lending and consumer protection compliance (e.g., UDAAP, ECOA, fair lending regulations)

• Hands-on experience building or deploying AI or automation tools to improve compliance workflows - not just familiarity with the concept

• Data management skills (SQL, Google Sheets, Excel)