Senior Product Counsel - Lending

Senior Product Counsel - Lending ABOUT COLUMN For companies building financial technology and transforming the financial services space, the biggest bottleneck to their growth and innovation is often the underlying banks and infrastructure stack they rely on. We have spent our careers founding and scaling companies like Plaid, Square, Meta, Blend, and Affirm, and have seen this problem firsthand — builders and developers needing to partner with traditional banks, and creating API and abstraction layers over the patchwork that is the bank, its core, and many other vendors. All of this results in a complex (and often expensive) banking supply chain involving a user, fintech, BaaS middleware provider, bank, core and the Federal Reserve. At Column, we set out to simplify and fix this. We are a bank and a software company built from the ground up, offering builders and developers technology-forward banking solutions that cut out the hundreds of vendors, middleware providers, and abstraction layers. This means a safer, more transparent, and less costly banking supply chain. Come build with us! THE OPPORTUNITY As a Senior Product Counsel supporting Column’s Lending business, you will be responsible for providing strategic counsel for Column’s credit partnerships — including consumer and commercial loan origination, lines of credit, loan participations, and other bank-fintech lending partnerships. This isn’t a role where you’ll be toiling in obscurity – you’ll be a key strategic partner working directly with Go-to-Market, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, and Finance teams to drive product development and expansion. Your unique perspective, drawn from past experience launching lending products, will be invaluable as we navigate complex regulatory environments while maintaining our competitive edge. Unlike typical in-house counsel positions, this role offers true ownership. You’ll be the key decision-maker on product legal strategy, with direct access to leadership and the ability to shape Column’s approach to regulatory compliance and product development. Each fintech partnership is an opportunity to design new banking products, and you’ll not only have a seat at the table, you’ll be responsible for driving strategy and execution from start to finish. This is a hands-on and customer-facing role where you will work closely with fintech partners. You’ll collaborate with our partners to navigate the consumer protection frameworks that define bank-fintech lending relationships, ensuring that each program is built on a defensible legal and regulatory foundation while providing flexibility for modern product offerings. When our fintech partners approach us with rapid-fire ideas for new features, delivery channels, product structures, and UX changes, you will be the one to collaboratively chart a path to launch. You will move fast, with bank-grade rigor and fintech-level speed. This role reports directly to the Bank’s General Counsel. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Drive Product Strategy & Innovation: Be the strategic legal voice enabling product innovation across our credit and lending portfolio. Partner closely with business teams and fintech partners from ideation through launch, anticipating challenges and architecting creative solutions that balance business needs with regulatory requirements. Advise on credit product structuring, and the legal implications of new lending features and partnership models. - Own Regulatory Architecture: Build and evolve regulatory frameworks for existing and new products. Leverage your deep expertise in TILA, ECOA, UDAAP, FCRA, state usury and licensing laws, the evolving EWA space, federal preemption, and true lender risk. Partner with compliance and risk teams to develop scalable approaches that protect the business while enabling growth. - Lead Subject Matter Expertise: Be the go-to authority on legal and regulatory requirements impacting the credit and lending business lines. Share insights on regulatory d ... (truncated, view full listing at source)