Payment Operations Manager

About the role

You will own the end-to-end reliability of Cardless payment operations, ensuring every transaction flows smoothly from initiation to settlement. You will own the design and execution of operational workflows that keep our card programs running without interruption. You will own the relationship with processors and banks, translating complex network rules into clear actions for the team. You will own the detection and resolution of high-impact issues before they affect cardholders or revenue. You will own the automation roadmap, identifying repetitive tasks and driving them toward scalable, engineered solutions. You will own the documentation and knowledge transfer that allows our small team to operate at enterprise speed. You will own the metrics that matter, defining how we measure stability, efficiency, and growth in our operations. You will own the execution of program launches, ensuring new card products meet operational readiness standards from day one.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Reimagine how we onboard and operate by spotting manual pain points in the card lifecycle and designing smarter solutions.
• Get close to the product and build cards people love, improving operations and strengthening partnerships to make great credit card experiences possible.
• Drive the scale of Cardless payment operations by building processes and systems that handle growing complexity and volume seamlessly as we expand to millions of cardholders.
• Work directly in the payment operations world and analyze tickets to uncover root causes and drive fixes that solve underlying problems, not just surface issues.
• Operationalize network mandates by building intake and tracking processes, assessing impact, and coordinating implementation across Ops and Engineering.
• Support the BPO and back-office operations strategy - scaling external partnerships while establishing SOPs, training and audit frameworks to ensure quality and consistency.
• Build internal ops dashboards by scoping and delivering a unified view of card production, transaction exceptions, inventory levels and processor health - giving the team real-time visibility without relying on Engineering.
• Leverage AI to design and evolve processes, SOPs, and tooling to eliminate manual work while improving reliability, and enabling real-time monitoring and reporting.
• Partner with engineering to spec and deliver automation, writing clear requirements and acceptance criteria instead of waiting for perfect solutions.
• Own exception handling playbooks, defining clear steps, ownership, and escalation paths to reduce noise and speed resolution.
• Monitor processor and network health proactively, using data to predict issues and trigger preventative actions before they affect customers.
• Coordinate cross-functional readiness for new program launches, aligning compliance, risk, engineering, and operations around a common execution plan.
• Track and optimize key operations metrics, identifying bottlenecks and implementing changes that increase throughput without proportional headcount growth.
• Serve as the operational voice of the payments stack, ensuring that business stakeholders understand tradeoffs, timelines, and risks.
• Maintain and evolve runbooks and operational documentation so that workflows remain consistent even as the team scales.
• Prioritize work in a fast-moving environment, balancing urgent issues with strategic initiatives that unlock future scale.

Requirements

• 5+ years in payment or card operations (issuer, processor, or fintech).
• Experience with card processors, reconciliation, and network file formats (Visa, Mastercard, Amex).
• Strong SQL and comfort using data to diagnose issues and validate solutions.
• Experience building or improving operational tooling and automation.
• Knowledge of network mandates, BINs, and card lifecycle operations.
• Clear communicator across teams.
• Comfortable in fast-moving, ambiguous environments; fintech experience is a plus.

Practical notes

We work in the office 5 days a week. We know that's a dealbreaker for some people, and that's okay.

We move fast and operate with imperfect information. If you prefer fully defined problems and complete context before acting, this role may not be the right fit.

Fintech complexity is real. Credit cards sit at the intersection of product, compliance, fraud, and banking. You'll need to get fluent quickly and build that fluency into everything you create.

Compensation details were provided above in the Key facts section.

The expected cash compensation for this role is $150,000-$180,000 annually, plus equity and benefits. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not not limited to skills, experience, and specific work location.

Benefits are available to eligible employees and may include health insurance, retirement plans, and other elements as defined by Cardless at the time of enrollment.

This is an IC role. You won't have direct reports. You'll be a high performing individual contributor embedded in a small, high-output payment ops team.

You will work in the office in San Francisco five days per week.