Job Description for Financial Crime Compliance Manager at Ethena Labs - Globally Remote
Who We Are:
Ethena Labs is at the forefront of the next wave of DeFi, dedicated to building products for modern finance. Ethena is a synthetic dollar protocol built on Ethereum that provides a crypto-native solution for money, USDe, alongside a globally accessible dollar savings asset, sUSDe.
Our core mission is to provide truly crypto-native financial solutions that are globally accessible and bridge the gap between TradFi and the digital asset economy. We believe in transparency, efficiency, and empowering both individuals and institutions with greater control over their assets.
What we are Doing:
Ethena Labs is actively building and deploying a suite of groundbreaking products designed to address key challenges and unlock new opportunities within the digital finance landscape.
Our flagship product, USDe, is a synthetic dollar backed by digital assets, and takes the novel approach of using a delta-neutral hedging strategy to maintain its peg. This provides a truly scalable and censorship-resistant digital dollar.
Building upon USDe, we offer sUSDe. sUSDe provides crypto-native rewards generated from funding rates in derivatives markets, offering an alternative to existing products tethered to the traditional financial system.
Furthermore, we are actively developing solutions to facilitate institutional adoption of digital assets. In partnership with Securitize and Blackrocks BUIDL fund, USDtb provides a more traditional, asset-backed stablecoin option, leveraging established financial infrastructure to appeal to institutional clients. Expanding on this, iUSDe is designed specifically for traditional financial institutions, incorporating necessary compliance features to enable them to access the crypto-native rewards our protocol generates, in an institutional-friendly manner.
Finally, our most ambitious undertaking to date is Converge, our joint blockchain initiative with Securitize. This hybrid blockchain is designed to be the nexus where DeFi meets the needs of CeFi and TradFi. Converge aims to be a primary issuance layer for tokenised assets, integrating seamlessly with existing DeFi protocols to provide institutions with an environment to participate in the decentralised economy.
Through these offerings, Ethena Labs is not just creating new financial products; we are building the foundational infrastructure for a more open, efficient, and interconnected global financial system.
Join us!!
Location: Europe
The Role
The FinCrime Compliance Manager will be a key member of Ethena’s compliance team, reporting to the Head of Compliance and working closely with Operations, Legal, and Product. This role is central to Ethena’s responsibility to maintain strong financial crime defenses across our core products and upcoming initiatives. You’ll take ownership of investigations, sanctions reviews, and enhanced due diligence, while also developing the policies, playbooks, and monitoring frameworks that allow us to operate with confidence as we scale.
This is a hands-on leadership role: you’ll manage our investigations and EDD processes day to day, guide junior analysts, and serve as the point of contact for partners, auditors, and regulators on financial crime matters. The FinCrime Manager will be process-driven and detail-oriented, but also adaptable — someone who can balance the practical realities of a fast-moving crypto-native business with the diligence needed to meet global regulatory expectations.
What You’ll Do
- Lead Ethena’s financial crime compliance operations by taking ownership of investigations, sanctions reviews, and high-risk case escalations across USDe, sUSDe, USDtb, secondary markets and and upcoming product lines.
- Design and roll out enhanced due diligence (EDD) processes for institutional and B2B2C partners.
- Build and refine sanctions monitoring and blacklist frameworks, making sure our in-house case manager and auto-blacklisting logic are applied consistently and effectively.
- Run the day-to-day investigations and monitoring queues, setting clear expectations for turnaround times, keeping the workflow moving, and making sure every case is handled properly.
- Own the policies and procedures for financial crime controls — from transaction monitoring and sanctions to EDD and investigations. You’ll keep these policies up to date as regulations evolve across MiCA, BVI, Cayman, and beyond, and translate them into practical guidance that the team can actually use.
- Work closely with Product, Legal, and Operations to embed financial crime controls into how Ethena builds and launches new products.
- Be the main point of contact for law enforcement, regulators, and auditors when it comes to financial crime matters.
- Train and mentor teams across the business — from compliance and ops staff to product managers — on how financial crime risks show up in practice, how sanctions exposure works in a crypto setting, and what good monitoring looks like day to day.
What We’re Looking For
- Proven experience in financial crime investigations, with a track record of managing complex crypto cases (mixers, cross-chain flows, sanctions evasion).
- Hands-on expertise with blockchain analytics platforms (TRM, Chainalysis, Elliptic) and onboarding solutions (Sumsub or similar).
- Strong understanding of AML/CFT, KYC/KYB, and sanctions regulations, with ability to apply them across multi-jurisdictional structures (EU MiCA, BVI AML, Cayman foundation, U.S. MSB).
- Experience designing and leading EDD programs for complex counterparties, including DAOs, offshore funds, and institutional LPs.
- Knowledge of building and managing AML/CFT and financial crime programs, including drafting and maintaining policies, procedures, and playbooks.
- Experience in audit readiness and assurance, including preparing for external AML/FinCrime audits and remediating control gaps.
- Tech-savvy, with ability to navigate Ethena’s product ecosystem (mint/redeem mechanics, staking, off-exchange settlement) and integrate compliance tooling into workflows.
$90,000 - $120,000 a year
Why Ethena Labs?
Join a forward-thinking, crypto-native company with a mission to revolutionize decentralized finance.
Work alongside a passionate and innovative team that values collaboration and creativity.
Enjoy a flexible, remote-friendly work environment with opportunities for growth and learning.
If you subscribe to the mission of separating the dollar from the state, then we want to hear from you!
We look forward to receiving your application and will be in touch after having a chance to review.
In the meantime, here are some links to more information about Ethena Labs to help you check us out:
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