Senior Legal Counsel – Contracts (German speaker)

About this role

Could your legal expertise help build the contractual foundations of Europe’s next financial management platform?

At Pennylane, we believe legal should be more than a safeguard. It should be a business enabler.

Our ambition is to equip millions of small and medium-sized businesses across Europe with a complete, high-performing financial management platform. As Pennylane continues to grow rapidly in France and expand internationally, we are looking for a Senior Legal Counsel, Contracts to join our Legal, Compliance & Risk team.

Within a Legal department of 10 professionals, the Contracts team secures Pennylane’s commercial and operational relationships with customers, suppliers, partner firms, resellers, integrators and strategic partners.

Reporting to the Lead Legal Counsel, Contracts, you will work closely with our Sales, Partnerships, Security, Finance and Product teams. This is a hands-on role where legal rigor, creativity and business pragmatism are equally valued.

🌍 WHAT IS PENNYLANE?

Pennylane is one of France’s most dynamic fintech companies, currently expanding rapidly across Europe.

In just six years, we have managed to:

💻 Establish ourselves in the market as an innovative provider of accounting and financial management software

💰 Raise a total of €400 million from renowned investors, including Sequoia, Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firm, known for backing Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Stripe, PayPal, and many others in their early days

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Grow from 7 co-founders to a team of 1,000 employees, with an average Glassdoor rating of 4.9/5 and 94% of reviewers saying they would recommend Pennylane to their friends and family

🌍 Build an international team made up of employees from 25 different countries, with a truly flexible remote-working culture

🚀 More than 900,000 small and medium-sized businesses and over 6,000 accounting firms in France already use Pennylane!

🎯 YOUR ROLE

You will act as a trusted legal partner for teams across Pennylane, managing a broad range of commercial and operational agreements from drafting through to signature and post-signature follow-up.

You will also help make our contracting processes more efficient and scalable, contributing to the tools, templates, playbooks and legal culture that support Pennylane’s growth.

📋 YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

International contracts

- Draft and negotiate purchase orders and related agreements with partner firms, primarily outside France, with a current focus on Germany.

- Manage contracts with strategic international suppliers.

- Maintain and improve templates in line with regulatory, product and business developments.

- Work with Sales and Partnerships to streamline the contracting process.

Customer, reseller and integrator agreements

- Improve customer terms and conditions for SME customers across France and Europe.

- Support Sales with the contracting process and automated quotations.

- Review and negotiate agreements with Pennylane integrators and resellers.

- Anticipate the contractual impact of key regulations, including e-invoicing, payment services and the EU AI Act.

- Contribute to contract templates and playbooks.

Legal operations and collaboration

- Structure and improve internal contracting processes to increase efficiency and scalability.

- Optimize our contract management tools, including Tomorro, Pivot and Notion.

- Identify opportunities to automate repetitive, low-value tasks, including through AI.

- Provide clear, pragmatic advice to Sales, Partnerships, Finance, Security and Product teams.

- Train non-legal teams and help build a strong legal culture across Pennylane.  

🙋 THE PROFILE WE ARE LOOKING FOR

- You are a qualified lawyer or legal counsel with extensive experience in contract law, gained in a law firm, particularly in IP/IT, technology or SaaS, and/or in a fast-growing tech company.

- You are fluent in English and have a working knowledge of Franch and German.

- You have strong expertise in B2B SaaS agreements, including IP, indemnification, liability caps, SLAs and data-related provisions.

- You are autonomous and comfortable managing matters from start to finish.

- You have experience working in a multi-jurisdictional environment, particularly across France and Europe.

- You are interested in legal operations and technology, and have experience structuring processes or optimizing contract management tools.

- You are a genuine business partner, able to help teams move quickly while protecting the company.

- You are rigorous, concise and able to make complex legal topics clear to non-legal audiences.

- You enjoy building in a fast-moving environment where ambiguity, prioritization and rapid iteration are part of the job.  

You do not tick every box? Apply anyway. The most interesting profiles rarely match a job description perfectly. What matters to us is your experience, your way of thinking and your desire to help build something meaningful.

📍 LOCATION AND WORKING MODEL

This role is available in a hybrid format from Paris or as a fully remote position elsewhere in France or Germany

🌈 OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

Pennylane is committed to providing an inclusive and supportive work environment, with equal opportunities for all candidates regardless of social or ethnic background, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or any other personal characteristic.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES

Please apply only through Pennylane’s official channels. Our communications are sent from addresses ending in @pennylane.com http://pennylane.com or @pennylane-partners.com http://pennylane-partners.com.

We will never ask you for payment or financial information during the recruitment process.

🇫🇷 Données personnelles

Pennylane traite vos données pour gérer votre candidature et évaluer votre adéquation au poste. Si votre candidatur

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