
Upvest · Berlin
At Upvest, we are on a mission to make investing as easy as spending money. Upvest empowers businesses to offer a wide range of investment products and the best...
At Upvest, we are on a mission to make investing as easy as spending money. Upvest empowers businesses to offer a wide range of
investment products and the best experience in the field of capital market investment and retirement planning. Upvest’s Investment
API is easy to integrate so that fintechs and financial institutions can save resources and fully focus on their core business.
We are proud to partner with Europe’s leading Fintechs and financial institutions such as DKB, Revolut, N26 and Raisin. Founded in
2017 by Martin Kassing, Upvest now brings together over 270 talented professionals from more than 70 nationalities. Upvest is
backed by €280M in total funding from world-class investors, including BlackRock, Tencent, Sapphire Ventures, and Bessemer Venture
Partners, Earlybird, Notion Capital, and Motive. Our latest €105M funding round in March 2026 - led by Sapphire and Tencent -
serves as a massive catalyst for our growth, allowing us to offer premier investment experience.
As (Senior) Legal Counsel – Investment Operations, you are part of the legal infrastructure that keeps Upvest's post-trade engine
running. You bring a granular understanding of clearing, settlement, and custody — and you use it to ensure that every transaction
Upvest processes is legally sound, operationally resilient, and regulatorily defensible at scale.
Your mission is to safeguard Upvest's operating business as it scales across the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. Working within a
high-performing legal team, you will be the go-to legal voice for everything that happens after a trade is executed — ensuring our
post-trade infrastructure remains compliant, our counterparty relationships are properly governed, and our operational processes
can absorb the demands of rapid growth.
governing clearing, settlement, and custody operations, ensuring our processes remain compliant with applicable regulation at
every step of the transaction lifecycle.
custody arrangements, including sub-custodian relationships. are structured, documented, and monitored to the highest
regulatory standard.
and other post-trade infrastructure providers. Maintain a contractual framework that is robust, scalable, and commercially
sound.
developments across MiFID, WpDVerOV, CSDR, and MaRisk, and translate their implications into actionable guidance for
Operations, Compliance, and Finance.
settlement failures, and operational risk events from a legal perspective. Develop playbooks that enable fast, legally
defensible responses.
AI-assisted review workflows, and documentation standards that keep pace with operational growth without sacrificing rigour.
legal qualification (Erste Juristische Prüfung).
at the level of a seasoned practitioner who has worked directly with CCPs, CSDs, or custodians.
meaningful post-trade operating footprint.
MaRisk). Exposure to UK (FCA) regulation or other European NCAs is a strong plus.
infrastructure and regulation diverges by jurisdiction.
or smarter process workflows.
creating paralysis, and give Operations and Compliance answers they can act on.
day-to-day stakeholder management.
ambitious, and meaningful. You’ll work with modern technologies and create something entirely new. No legacy systems, no
limits.
professional coaching and enjoy the flexibility to work remotely abroad for up to 183 days a year. Recharge with UpRest, a
one-month fully paid sabbatical after every 4 years of working at Upvest.
use it.
on the role. We give you the choice and budget to work where you’re most comfortable and productive, either at home or in the
office. You choose.
and a participation in our employee equity program.
colleagues and celebrate our achievements.
connection, like Upfem for our female Upvengers, or UpVergent supporting neurodivergent Upvengers and allies.
others.
Upvest is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all
employees.
At Upvest, we are on a mission to make investing as easy as spending money. Upvest empowers businesses to offer a wide range of investment products and the best experience in the field of capital market investment and retirement planning. Upvest’s Investment API is easy to integrate so that fintechs and financial institutions can save resources and fully focus on their core business. We are proud to partner with Europe’s leading Fintechs and financial institutions such as DKB, Revolut, N26 and Raisin. Founded in 2017 by Martin Kassing, Upvest now brings together over 270 talented professionals from more than 70 nationalities. Upvest is backed by €280M in total funding from world-class investors, including BlackRock, Tencent, Sapphire Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners, Earlybird, Notion Capital, and Motive. Our latest €105M funding round in March 2026 - led by Sapphire and Tencent - serves as a massive catalyst for our growth, allowing us to offer premier investment experience. YOUR MISSION AT UPVEST: As (Senior) Legal Counsel – Investment Products, you are part of the legal infrastructure that powers Upvest's Investment API. You bring a granular understanding of the capital markets lifecycle and you use it to build something durable: a scalable, cross-border legal framework that keeps pace with a fast-moving product. Your mission is to enable Upvest's internationalisation by closing the gap between rigid financial regulation and flexible, API-driven product design. Working within a high-performing legal team, you will help ensure that as Upvest expands across the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, our product remains legally robust, commercially competitive, and technically precise. Key Responsibilities: * Product Architecture & Compliance by Design: Be the legal authority on the lifecycle of financial instruments. Partner directly with Product and Engineering to co-design features from fractional trading to new asset classes, translating MiFID II/III and WpIG into concrete technical requirements so compliance is built in from the first line of code, not bolted on after. * Scalable Internationalisation: Own the legal adaptation of Upvest's core German investment offering as we expand into the UK, Switzerland, and the wider EEA. Define jurisdiction-specific requirements while preserving a coherent, scalable product framework across markets. * Regulatory Navigation: Serve as the internal expert on EU and German financial regulation. Monitor and interpret regulatory developments across MiFID, WpIG, WpHG, and MaRisk, and translate their implications into actionable guidance for Product, Operations, and Compliance. * Institutional Contracting: Lead and support the negotiation of complex B2B agreements with institutional counterparties, including credit institutions and global fintechs, across Upvest's offering. * Legal Ops & Automation: Drive the modernisation of Upvest's legal function. Champion the adoption of contract lifecycle management tools, AI-assisted review workflows, and scalable processes that free up capacity for high-value legal work. * Cross-functional Partnership: Act as a trusted adviser to Product, Engineering, Operations, and Compliance. Deliver clear, actionable guidance that enables commercial decisions cutting through complexity without creating bottlenecks What You'll Bring: * Qualification: at least 3–5 years post-qualification experience (PQE) in the financial services industry. At least one German legal qualification (Erste Juristische Prüfung). * Capital Markets Depth: Hands-on understanding of lifecycles across a variety of investment products (stocks, investment funds, bonds, derivatives) at the level of a seasoned practitioner. * Industry Background: Experience in a regulated investment firm, fintech, infrastructure provider, or bank with a brokerage and custody product offering. * Regulatory Expertise: Strong command of EU and German financial law (MiFID, WpIG, WpHG). Exposure to UK (FCA) regulation or other European NCAs is a strong plus. * International Mindset: Familiarity with adapting core legal frameworks to new European markets and regulatory regimes. * Automation Advocate: Enthusiasm for streamlining the legal function through technology whether tooling, AI-assisted review, or smarter process workflows. * Pragmatic and Direct: You focus on enabling growth through clear-eyed risk judgement. You cut through complexity and give the business answers it can act on. * Languages: Professional fluency in English and German — essential for regulatory filings and high-stakes stakeholder management. HOW WE UPVEST IN YOU: * Impact-driven work: We’re building the infrastructure that will power the future of investing in Europe. It’s complex, ambitious, and meaningful. You’ll work with modern technologies and create something entirely new. No legacy systems, no limits. * Wellbeing: Recharge with 30 days of annual leave and maintain a healthy lifestyle with sports benefits. Access confidential professional coaching and enjoy the flexibility to work remotely abroad for up to 183 days a year. Recharge with UpRest, a one-month fully paid sabbatical after every 4 years of working at Upvest. * Development: Growth is in our DNA. Each Upvenger has access to a personal development budget and the freedom to decide how to use it. * Flexible work environment: Work from any of our hubs in Berlin, London or Tallinn hybrid or remotely across Europe, depending on the role. We give you the choice and budget to work where you’re most comfortable and productive, either at home or in the office. You choose. * Compensation and equity: We believe that all Upvengers contribute to our success and deserve a competitive, above-market salary and a participation in our employee equity program. * Team celebrations: Participate in company-wide events, such as UpFest, dinners, offsites and our Holiday party, to connect with colleagues and celebrate our achievements. * Inclusion: We’re committed to a culture where everyone belongs and thrives. Our Employee Resources Groups foster inclusion and connection, like Upfem for our female Upvengers, or UpVergent supporting neurodivergent Upvengers and allies. OUR VALUES: * Make it easy for others. We simplify the complex and act with the best intentions. * Own the outcome. We are proactive, fast and confident to get the job done, valuing progress over perfection. * Rise to the challenge. We aim high and push the boundaries. We stay curious, learn and celebrate our wins together. * Tell the story. We start with the Why to align on purpose. We are transparent and share knowledge to empower and inspire others. Upvest is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
ABOUT LEMON.MARKETS 🍋 We enable anyone to be an investor. Our mission is to grow investing opportunities for all European customers and businesses. By empowering FinTechs, banks, and wealth managers to offer investment products, we help create financial well-being for their customers. lemon.markets is a Brokerage-as-a-Service platform: simple digital access to capital markets through a single API. Our API-first infrastructure abstracts brokerage complexity with a well-documented API, a self-service customer operations portal, and a clear regulatory framework, so partners can launch customer-centric, compliant products in weeks, not months. As part of the dwpbank group, we share a clear goal: we enable anyone to be an investor by making investing in capital markets more accessible. By combining dwpbank’s long-standing expertise and stability with lemon.markets’ technology-first mindset and speed, we are building a modern, modular securities services ecosystem. Together, we offer faster time-to-market, modular services, and a modern customer experience that helps financial service providers stay competitive and respond more flexibly in a changing market. YOUR MISSION: At lemon.markets, we're building the infrastructure that powers the next generation of investment products. As we scale, and navigate an incoming wave of new regulations, we need a sharp, experienced legal mind to join our growing Legal team. This is not a standard in-house legal role. We are a frontrunner in a fast-moving, largely uncharted space, and the legal work reflects that: highly creative, non-standard, and intellectually stimulating at every turn. If you are energised by the idea of helping define what the rulebook looks like rather than just following it, you'll feel right at home here. You will work closely with our General Counsel and an experienced Legal team, taking on a high degree of personal ownership with strong visibility to senior management, including our Managing Directors and Founder. You will: * Own the contract work. The majority of your time will be spent drafting contracts from scratch. Because lemon.markets operates in a non-standard space as an infrastructure provider, templates rarely exist. You'll be creating the language that makes novel investment products legally enforceable. * Review and negotiate agreements received from partners, clients and counterparties, and represent lemon.markets' interests with confidence in negotiations — including with German-speaking counterparties. * Enable product development. You act as a critical legal checkpoint for ideas coming from our Product and Sales teams. Your role is to translate innovative concepts into legally feasible and properly documented offerings, or flag where something simply can't be done. * Monitor regulatory developments particularly in securities law (Wertpapierrecht), capital markets law (Kapitalmarktrecht) and banking law (Bankrecht). Translate regulatory changes into concrete contract language and proactively communicate their impact across the organisation. * Support the General Counsel in shaping the company's legal strategy, including our European expansion. * Collaborate cross-functionally with inter alia Compliance, AML, Data Protection, and other teams who will regularly seek your input. * Advise senior leadership. You'll have direct visibility to the Managing Directors and Founder, both as subject-matter expert and as a deputy to the General Counsel. You will be successful in this role if: * You are a fully qualified German lawyer (Volljurist) with strong academic foundations and 3 to 8 years of post-qualification experience (PQE). * You have solid, hands-on expertise in securities law (Wertpapierrecht), capital markets law (Kapitalmarktrecht), and/or banking law (Bankrecht), ideally gained at a major law firm, Fintech or Banking environment. * You have strong foundations in contract law and are comfortable by the challenge of drafting agreements where no template exists. * You operate confidently in both German and English at C1 level (near-native). What matters is your ability to negotiate and advise at the highest level in both languages. * You are genuinely autonomous: when a task lands on your desk, you drive it forward without waiting to be told. * You can translate complex legal questions into plain language that engineers, product managers and business teams can understand and act on. * You are resilient and creative, you won't be rattled by the absence of precedent; instead, you'll see it as an opportunity to think outside the box. * You enjoy working in a multicultural, interdisciplinary team and thrive in environments where collaboration across functions is part of everyday life. * You are curious and open-minded, willing to explore adjacent areas of law as our business evolves. How we take care of you: * 🚀 Compensation package: We offer you a competitive salary, based on your experience and the value-add you bring to lemon.markets. * 🕑 Flexible working hours: We trust people to choose when they work best and avoid a rigid 9 to 5 mindset. You decide on the rhythm that helps you do your best work, with only shared core hours from 12:00 to 16:00 to support collaboration. * 📌 Part-time friendly: This role is part-time friendly, with a minimum commitment of 25 hours/week. We’re flexible and happy to discuss a working model that fits your availability while meeting the needs of the team. * 🏢 Hybrid work setup: You can work from anywhere in Germany within a hybrid model. At the same time, in-person collaboration is a key part of our culture. That being said, individual contributer lemoneers work 4 days or more per month on-site in our Berlin office, spending quality time together with the team at events, onsites/offsites or over team dinners. * 📈 Grow with us: We take your personal development seriously! You’ll get regular mentorship and stretch opportunities, a clear career development framework with frequent feedback conversations as well as an annual learning budget. * 🌱 People & culture: You’ll feel our culture in the small things, like polaroids from our lemoneers’ first day, Friday food market strolls at Maybachufer, and our monthly new-joiner breakfast. But also in the bigger things: celebrating the onboarding of new partners, growing our teams, and owning a strong discussion culture. * 💛 Perks & benefits: We choose benefits that add actual value. We sponsor a Deutschlandticket for employees on unlimited contracts, plus 50% off on Beatvest - our partner for financial education and investing. * 🏝 Workation: Get out of here! At lemon.markets you can work remotely from anywhere in the EU for up to 10 consecutive days at a time, and up to 60 days per year in total. As an equal opportunity employer, lemon.markets is committed to building an inclusive workplace. The company welcomes people from all different backgrounds, including age, citizenship, ethnic and racial origins, gender identities, individuals with disabilities, marital status, religions and ideologies, and sexual orientations to apply. If you feel this role could be a great match for you even if you don’t tick every box, we’d still love to hear from you, please apply. You have any questions? Feel free to contact us via talent@lemon.markets.com
Location: Hamburg or Berlin! At Freenow by Lyft, we’re not just moving people - we’re empowering smarter mobility decisions to help people move freely and make cities thrive. We are pioneers in the tech-driven mobility space, building the future of urban transportation. As we scale our operations and pioneer autonomous vehicle technologies across the EU, we face a sophisticated landscape of regulatory challenges that require a world-class compliance framework. We’re seeking a Senior Legal Counsel (Corporate & M&A) to lead our legal strategy across two primary pillars: comprehensive corporate governance and M&A transactions throughout Europe. In this role, you will act as the primary legal architect for M&A activities while simultaneously overseeing the corporate lifecycle and governance of our international subsidiaries. You will manage complex negotiations, draft transactional and corporate documentation, and ensure that our corporate structure and M&A initiatives are executed with precision to protect the company’s global interests. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- YOUR DAILY ADVENTURES WILL INCLUDE: * Oversee entity lifecycle management, corporate secretarial matters, and board support across European subsidiaries. * Draft and manage intercompany agreements and support internal group reorganizations. * Provide ongoing legal counsel to internal business units on corporate law matters. * Lead the full M&A lifecycle, including strategic deal preparation, drafting LOIs, performing legal due diligence, and negotiating transactional documentation (SPAs, TSAs) with rigorous risk protection. Guide on regulatory approvals and bring the deal to completion. * Architect legal integration plans for acquired businesses and ensure harmonized post-close entity governance and regulatory compliance. * Direct outside counsel globally, managing engagement, budgets, and deliverables across multi-jurisdictional matters to ensure high-quality output and cost efficiency. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS ROLE: * A qualified lawyer with 5+ years of PQE specializing in both Corporate law and M&A, ideally gained through a combination of top-tier law firm and in-house experience within a fast-paced, tech-driven environment. * Fluent in English, with professional proficiency in German as a significant advantage. * A strong project manager capable of coordinating complex, multi-jurisdictional deal workstreams and balancing competing priorities under tight deadlines. * A master communicator with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and translate legal complexity into crystal clear, actionable business guidance. * Highly diligent, proactive, and collaborative, with a proven track record of building effective relationships across cross-functional teams. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENEFITS & PERKS IN A NUTSHELL: * Flexible working arrangements * LinkedIn Learning * Sabbatical & special leave policies * WeRoad partnership * Birthday, 24th + 31st December off * Short term EU work policy * Mobility Credit * Employee assistance program Plus more local benefits depending on your work location! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION: Freenow is an equal opportunity employer and we consider qualified applicants regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or age. We want you to grow and evolve, bring your true self to work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT FREENOW: Freenow by Lyft empowers smarter mobility decisions, helping people to move freely and cities to thrive. Through our multi-mobility app, we feature broad options for everyone across 9 European markets and over 180 cities. Millions of passengers can access services including taxis, private hire vehicles, carsharing, car rental, e-scooters, e-bikes, e-mopeds, and public transport within a single app. In July 2025 Freenow was acquired by Lyft, a global mobility platform, which connects riders and drivers for billions of rides across North America and Europe. Together, Freenow and Lyft are creating a more caring and connected world, with transportation for everyone. We are a global, diverse, highly motivated, and collaborative team that strives for excellence and likes to have fun. Ready for your next ride?