Deputy Head of Compliance

Job Title: Deputy Head of Compliance
Department: Compliance
Reports to: Head of Global Compliance
Location: Flexible

About Codex

Codex is a fast-growing stablecoin payments company, building the infrastructure for cross-border payments that move money faster, cheaper, and more transparently than the legacy financial system. We’re backed by Pantera, Circle, Coinbase, Dragonfly, Wintermute, and Cumberland, and demand keeps outpacing what we’ve built so far.

We’re a small team solving hard problems at the intersection of crypto and global payments, and the people who join now don’t just ride that growth, they build and scale it with us. You’ll own real problems, work directly with the founders, and shape how Codex grows from here.

The Role

We are rapidly expanding our cross-border payments capability, and the compliance programme behind it needs an action-oriented, dedicated leader. You’ll own it: the payments compliance frameworks, and the risk decisions on the B2B clients and partners we onboard. You’ll also own transaction monitoring and investigations across fiat and on-chain flows, deciding how we monitor and what gets escalated.

You’ll work directly with our Head of Global Compliance, who leads our global compliance programmes. This is a hands-on role – you’ll write the frameworks, work cases yourself, and deal with regulators and financial partners directly, while building a Compliance Operations team.

Responsibilities

Payments Flows & Partners

• Review the flow of funds for new corridors, products and payment partners, and set the compliance conditions before launch

• Own compliance oversight of third-party payment models, including outsourced KYB, partner-level controls and ongoing monitoring of partner performance

• Apply Travel Rule requirements and counterparty VASP due diligence to stablecoin transfers

Compliance Frameworks & Controls

• Build and own the compliance framework for B2B cross-border payments, covering payouts, collections and stablecoin on- and off-ramps

• Write and maintain the AML/CFT, sanctions, KYB and transaction monitoring policies that govern those flows, calibrated to our risk profile and to local requirements in each corridor

• Own the corridor- and jurisdiction-level risk assessments, including the risks specific to each payment rail, partner and flow of funds, and support the firm-wide assessment

• Set the compliance requirements for new products and client segments before they go live

• Support licence applications and regulator engagement for the markets we expand into

Transaction Monitoring & Investigations

• Own the transaction monitoring framework across fiat and on-chain flows: scenarios, thresholds, alert logic and coverage against our risk assessment and designed to capture risks across third-party payment flows

• Tune rules using data. Measure false positives, identify gaps, and adjust so that alert quality improves as volume grows

• Review and decide on escalated alerts. Raise requests for information, and decide whether to close, escalate or convert a case to a suspicious activity report

• Write and file suspicious activity reports to a high standard and keep case files audit-ready

• Work with Engineering and Product to specify monitoring requirements and automation, so that more first-line review can be automated over time

Client & Partner Risk

• Make risk determinations on complex B2B clients and financial partners, including opaque structures, high-risk jurisdictions and sensitive industries

• Review and sign off on higher-risk onboardings, and handle escalations from the Compliance Operations team

• Support responses to due diligence requests and RFIs from financial partners, banks and regulators

Team & Governance

• Set investigation standards, SLAs and quality checks for the Compliance Operations team, and coach junior analysts

• Produce management information on alerts, ageing, SAR conversion, EDD pipeline and review backlog for leadership
  

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years in financial crime compliance, including at least 5 years in B2B cross-border payments compliance, such as payouts, collections or correspondent banking

• Background at a reputable fintech or payments company

• Working knowledge of payment rails and flow of funds (SWIFT, SEPA, local schemes) and the risks each creates

• Experience working on licence applications and writing compliance frameworks in at least one of the US, LatAm, APAC or Africa, and ideally in more than one

• Experience designing, tuning and governing transaction monitoring rules, not only working alerts

• Experience writing and filing suspicious activity reports, and handling regulator or bank partner scrutiny

• Sound judgement: you can make a defensible risk call on incomplete information and explain it clearly to the business and to regulators

• A do-er: you have personally written policies, worked cases and handled regulator queries, not just advised or supervised

• Comfortable with data: you can interrogate transaction data yourself and work with Engineering on requirements

Nice to Have

• Direct experience with MSB, money transmitter or e-money licensing

• Experience with digital assets, stablecoins or VASP regimes, including on-chain monitoring and Travel Rule

• Experience setting up a compliance or monitoring function at a scale-up

• Prior experience as a deputy MLRO or in an MLRO-adjacent role