Director and Senior Managing Counsel (Employment Law)

Right now, the best jobs are limited to people in a handful of the world’s wealthiest cities, yet brilliant people are everywhere. Driven to overturn the status quo and distribute opportunities equally around the world, Oyster launched its global employment platform to help companies hire, pay, and care for talent anywhere.

When it comes to global employment, we walk the walk. We’re proof that companies don't need an office to create a highly-engaged culture. Since the company’s inception in January 2020, Oyster has:

🌏 Created a fully-distributed, vibrant team of 400+ employees across 60+ countries

👩‍💻Featured in Forbes having ranked #9 in Flexjobs Top 30 Companies for remote jobs

🌈 Established a diverse leadership team and an employee base that’s 60% female

🏆 Achieved one of the highest employee engagement scores in its class

🦄 Raised $286 million to date, with a current valuation of $1.2 billion!

💚 B Corp status achieved in 2023

Our momentum speaks to the power of global employment—and we’re just getting started! If you want to change the world with Oyster and be empowered to work remotely while doing so, we’d love for you to apply!

Location: While this position is posted in a specific location, all of Oyster’s positions are fully remote and you can work from home. Forever. To create the best experience for our new hire, this role requires you to be based within the EMEA region

Oyster is hiring a Director & Senior Managing Counsel (Employment Law) to lead our Claims & Escalations team and help shape how we support a global, distributed workforce. This role reports directly to our General Counsel and plays a key part in guiding the company through complex employment-law issues across multiple countries.

The core of this job is deep, hands-on employment law expertise. We’re looking for someone who brings significant experience advising on employment matters, ideally across several jurisdictions or in cross-border contexts. This includes partnering closely with HR, drafting and reviewing policies and employment agreements, and managing litigation or contentious matters. If you enjoy being the go-to person for tough employment-law calls, this is the kind of role where you’ll have real impact.

You’ll manage a team of attorneys and legal professionals who support both internal partners and external clients. Together, you’ll work with outside counsel, research local laws and regulations, and guide our People Advisory and People Experience teams through the full employment lifecycle for Oyster’s Staff and Team Members around the world. The team also oversees all employment-related and commercial claims.

Experience with immigration rules, employee benefits, or global workforce issues is a plus.

There’s also space for broader legal work, such as corporate diligence, contract drafting and negotiation, and developing company-wide policies and procedures, so you’ll touch a wide range of topics while still anchoring the function in solid employment-law leadership.

We are looking for someone bright, energetic, and a self-starter. The successful candidate will be an employment lawyer able to handle any responsibility assigned, who can successfully work on their own but is also not afraid to ask for help.

• Successfully manage a team of remote lawyers and legal specialists located around the world

• Advise on Employment law issues, including escalations arising from customer and team member engagements, and the complexities of balancing Oyster’s legal obligations with customer expectations

• Oversee all claims and disputes, liaising with outside counsel

• Provide advice and counsel to internal stakeholders at all levels of the organization, and external stakeholders as required, regarding employment law and employment-related issues in various countries

• Work cross-functionally with Oyster’s People Services, Operations, and Revenue teams to support the entire employment lifecycle of Oyster’s internal colleagues and external team members

• Liaise with and managing outside counsel, to include managing and monitoring legal spend and outside counsel performance

• Collaborate with other Legal Teams to solve complex legal issues, create efficiencies and support department-wide initiatives

• Other duties as assigned

• At least 7+ years PQE practicing employment law

• Juris Doctorate or other qualified lawyer admitted to practice in one or more jurisdictions

• “In-house” experience working within a corporate legal department

• Law firm experience, including in the practice of litigation

• People management experience

• Experience working in a remote work environment

• Experience advising on employment law compliance in one or more APAC, LATAM or European countries;

• Experience with drafting employment and non-compete agreements, and handling employment terminations, transfers and employee complaints;

• Ability to handle complex legal issues involving various countries laws (including employment-related questions and global workforce issues)

• Capable of explaining complex legal theory, terminology, and issues in easy-to-understand language for digestion by Oyster Team Members, Staff, and Customer Companies

• Excellent analytical, communication, and research skills

• A positive attitude and willingness to assist others no matter how small the task

• Ability to work in a fast-paced, high-output, team-oriented, practical environment

• Experience in one or more of the following areas would be beneficial:

  • Working at an EOR or PEO

  • Advising on employee benefits (retirement and welfare plans, equity or stock options, or executive compensation);

  • Advising a multinational organization on cross-border compliance issues;

  • Immigration law or global mobility experience

  • Experience with corporate due diligence

  • Experience with employee benefits

You'll also need

• A reliable home internet connection (or be able to get one)

• Fluent English language skills – both written and spoken

Our values guide the work we do, the decisions we make, and the culture that makes us special. We elevate talent. 🙌  We build trust. 🤝 We thrive together. 🌍

Our mission is to create a more equal world—one global hire at a time. Everything we do ladders up to our mission—and that doesn’t just mean building software. We develop programs, participate in workshops, and create dedicated teams to ensure we successfully support companies and knowledge workers in this new world of work. 

We embrace asynchronous communication and collaborative work—and we share how we work in the Oyster Public HQ —to help other global teams learn from our experiences.

Different countries have different statutory benefits, different cultures have different norms, and different people have different needs! In order to best support and encourage our diverse team, we’ve created How YOU Work; a program of policies, practices, and perks to support your whole human experience as an employee at Oyster.

• Work from anywhere: Oyster is a borderless, HQ-less company. As long as your work gets done on time, your team has the support they need, and you're authorized to work where you live, the world is truly your Oyster.

• Paid time off: We’re all about taking breaks—we all need it. Oyster provides employees with 40 days off each year, which includes public/bank holidays and vacation/holiday leave (unless your country mandates more).

• Mental health support: We consider your mental health a top priority. We offer access to Plumm, a mental well-being service, to support your mental health.

• Wellbeing allowance:  Each month, Oyster will top up your ThanksBen wallet with a wellbeing allowance. You can get pretty much anything that your heart desires! ThanksBen offers a wide array of options for spending your wellbeing allowance. Check out their benefits catalogue here for inspiration.

• Flexible parental leave: Families are created in lots of different ways. Our parental leave policy applies to all employees who are becoming parents, regardless of how they become a parent. Oysters are eligible for a minimum of three months of paid parental leave and your job will be held for 12 months (or longer if required by local jurisdiction).

• WFH stipend: Stipend to spend on your laptop and any other equipment you need for your home office; we'll get you up and running in no time!

At Oyster, we celebrate a variety of perspectives and experiences and we’ve intentionally built our product and our company with an inclusive, global mindset. We know from experience that people from underrepresented groups often don’t apply for roles they don’t feel they meet all the criteria for. We’re committed to elevating talent by creating a trust-based environment where we can all thrive together. So if you think you have what it takes, but don’t necessarily check every single box, please consider applying. We’d love to hear how you might contribute to our mission and our team.

Oyster is committed to ensuring equal opportunity of employment for qualified persons with disabilities and actively fosters an inclusive work environment. If you require reasonable accommodations throughout the recruiting process, please email [email protected] with the subject line: Interview Accommodations.

Our available positions are published on our careers page and should you be invited to interview with us, our recruitment team will only ever contact you directly from an @oysterhr.com email address. We will never ask you to send us money as part of a job offer. If you receive a suspicious email relating to opportunities at Oyster from any other email domain where someone is claiming to be a part of our recruitment team, or are directed to anywhere other than www.oysterhr.com/careers to view our available jobs we encourage you to submit a report through our Compliance and Ethics Helpline.