Legal Counsel – Employment Law

📍 Berlin, Germany

About SumUp

We believe in the everyday hero. Those who have the courage to follow their passion and who have the strength and determination to realise their dreams.

Small business owners are at the heart of all we do, so we're creating powerful, easy-to-use financial solutions to help them run their businesses. With a founder’s mentality and a 'team-first’ attitude, our diverse teams across Europe, South America and the United States work together to ensure that small business owners can be successful doing what they love.

🏢 Team Description

You’ll join our Legal team in Berlin, working closely with People Operations, People Partners, and business leaders across Germany. The team plays a key role in ensuring compliant, pragmatic, and business-oriented employment law support that enables SumUp’s growth while protecting our people and our company.

In this role, you’ll strengthen our German employment law operations by owning day-to-day legal matters, improving documentation standards, and building scalable processes that support a fast-moving organisation. You’ll report to the Head of Labor Relations / Lead Legal Counsel, Labour Law, collaborating with senior legal colleagues on more complex labour relations and Works Council matters while driving operational excellence in individual employment law topics.

👉 Learn more about our Berlin office: Berlin (Landing Page)

🚦 What You’ll Do

• Provide practical, solution-oriented advice on German individual employment law matters

• Draft, review, and standardise employment contracts, amendments, severance agreements, and HR documentation

• Develop and maintain contract templates, clause libraries, and policy wording to ensure consistency and compliance

• Support employment-related processes including terminations, investigations, and compliance cases

• Collaborate cross-functionally with People Ops, People Partners, Data Privacy, and Compliance to ensure legally sound and scalable processes

🙌 You’ll Be Great for This Role If…

• You have a legal qualification suitable for practising German employment law (e.g. Second State Examination or equivalent).

• You demonstrate advanced proficiency in German individual employment law and confidently apply it in operational contexts.

• You have strong experience drafting and reviewing employment agreements and HR documentation with a high level of precision.

• You deliver pragmatic, business-oriented legal advice and communicate complex topics clearly to non-legal stakeholders.

• You are fluent in German and English.

🎉 Why you should join SumUp

🌎 Opportunity to work with SumUppers globally on large-scale fintech products used by millions of businesses worldwide, from our Berlin office. This involves an office-first setup

🌈 Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion: be part of a workplace that values and promotes diversity, fostering an inclusive environment where everyone's perspectives are respected and embraced

🚀 Enrolment onto our Virtual Stock Option programme: you will own a stake in SumUp’s future success

📚 A dedicated annual L&D budget of €2000 for your individual development, which you can be used to attend conferences and/or advancing your career through further education

💶 A corporate pension scheme where we match up to 20% of your contributions

🏖️ Generous time off: enjoy 28 days of paid leave plus public holidays and special leave days

🚵🏾‍♂️ Numerous other benefits such as Urban Sports Club subsidy, Kita placement assistance, subsidised office lunches

🌴 Break4me: 1-month sabbatical after 3 years of service

🔗 Referral Bonus: earn additional rewards by referring talented individuals to join the SumUp team

🤔 About SumUp

At SumUp, we’re on a mission to empower small businesses around the world with simple, affordable tools to help them start, run, and grow. More than 4 million merchants across 36 markets trust us as their financial partner — and we’re just getting started.

We’re a global team of 3,000+ people from over 90 nationalities, united by curiosity, collaboration, and care. Our core values and culture shape everything we do, fostering inclusion, learning, and belonging.

SumUp is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer, committed to building a safe, respectful, and diverse workplace where everyone can thrive.

👉 Explore more about our culture on our careers site, or follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Job Application Tip

We recognise that candidates feel they need to meet 100% of the job criteria in order to apply for a job. Please note that this is only a guide. If you don’t tick every box, it’s ok too because it means you have room to learn and develop your career at SumUp.