Lead, Employment Counsel

ABOUT THE ROLE

We're looking for an Employment Counsel to join Ramp's Legal team. This is a generalist employment role with broad scope. You will handle U.S. employment counseling as your base load, cover non-U.S. jurisdictions as needed, and own immigration and global mobility. You will partner directly with People, Talent, Total Rewards, Finance, Tax, Equity Admin, Compliance, and business leaders, and you will manage outside counsel in jurisdictions where we do not hold the expertise in house. We are a small, high-leverage team supporting a company that moves quickly, so you will cover a lot of ground and be trusted to run matters independently.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Day-to-day employment counseling: Advise People partners and managers on hiring, worker classification, compensation, leaves and accommodations, performance management, discipline, separations, and more

- Immigration and global mobility: Collaborate with the People team on the immigration program, including work authorization outside the U.S. Set and communicate the sponsorship policy, manage outside immigration counsel and case volume, and partner with Talent on offer-stage decisions. Support relocations, cross-border remote work requests, and business travel, and work with Finance and Tax on permanent establishment and mobility tax exposure

- Investigations: Collaborate with the People team on internal investigations and advise on findings and outcomes

- Disputes: Handle demand letters, agency charges, arbitrations, and litigation with outside counsel

- Agreements and templates: Own offer letters, employment agreements, separation and release agreements, contractor and consultant agreements, restrictive covenants, and the local-law variants of each

- Transactions: Support employment and immigration diligence, employee transitions, and post-close integration for M&A and new-market entry

- Build for scale: Produce manager training, policies, self-serve guidance, and repeatable processes as we expand in the US and globally

WHAT YOU NEED

- 8+ years practicing employment law, with a combination of top law firm and in-house experience at a high-growth technology company

- JD from an accredited law school and active membership in at least one U.S. state bar (New York or California preferred)

- Deep U.S. employment counseling experience across the full employee lifecycle, including wage and hour, leaves and accommodations, investigations, performance management, and separations

- Working knowledge of employment law outside the U.S. and the judgment to triage a cross-border question quickly

- Hands-on experience with U.S. business immigration and global mobility, including running a sponsorship program and managing immigration counsel at volume

- Demonstrated ability to independently run multiple time-sensitive matters

- Exceptional written and verbal communication. You can turn an employment law question into guidance a manager can act on in one reading

- High judgment on sensitive and confidential matters, and the steadiness to advise on them under time pressure

- Comfort operating in a fast-paced environment where priorities shift and processes are still being built, and a bias toward action

NICE TO HAVES

- Experience at a fintech, payments, or regulated financial services company

- Experience standing up employment infrastructure in a new country, including EOR-to-entity transitions and works council or employee representative consultation

- Employment experience across EMEA, APAC, LATAM, or Canada

- A track record of using AI or automation to eliminate manual legal work