Payments Operations Lead

About the role

You will architect and execute the end-to-end payments operations strategy for a company moving billions of dollars through its own infrastructure. This role owns the full lifecycle of money movement, from the moment a transaction is initiated to its final settlement and reconciliation. You will establish the controls, policies, and systems that protect revenue and ensure business continuity. The position requires building processes from the ground up to manage risk, reserves, and compliance for high-value enterprise merchants. You will be responsible for defining the operational playbook that governs how disputes, fraud, and settlements are handled daily. This is a foundational role that sets the operational tempo and reliability standards for the entire finance and accounting organization. You will partner closely with engineering, legal, and finance to align operational capabilities with business growth objectives.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Build the function by selecting the systems, defining the architecture, and hiring the team that comes after you, deciding what we build versus buy.
• Own the risk register by mapping every way a chargeback, return, or merchant failure could cost Tabs money, then setting detection triggers and remediation paths before each merchant goes live.
• Set reserve strategy by defining reserve amounts by merchant tier, negative balance triggers, and offset and clawback mechanics, while owning the thresholds and escalation paths.
• Run reconciliation by knowing where every dollar sits across balance accounts and settlement on a daily basis, building the cadence, the alerting thresholds, and the break-investigation process.
• Set fraud and compliance posture by owning the AML policy, the merchant acceptance policy, and the risk relationship with our payment partners.
• Own disputes and chargebacks by building the merchant self-service system, including evidence flow, deadlines, and escalation path, and owning the outcome, not a queue.
• Scale onboarding and migration by ensuring underwriting, merchant sign-up, and acquirer migration hold up as we grow from dozens of merchants to hundreds.
• Define and implement operational metrics and KPIs to track the health of payments, including chargeback rates, reconciliation breaks, reserve adequacy, and false positive rates.
• Partner with Finance and Engineering to automate manual processes, reduce touchpoints, and improve the accuracy and speed of payments operations.
• Serve as the primary escalation path and expert for complex payment issues, guiding cross-functional teams to resolution while protecting company interests.

Requirements

• 5+ years in payments operations, risk, or fraud and dispute operations, including at least 2 years at a payment facilitator, processor, or platform such as Stripe (Connect), Adyen for Platforms, Square/Block, Shopify Payments, or similar.
• A track record of building the process, not just operating one someone else designed, with the ability to create procedures that scale.
• Fluency in how reserves, holdbacks, and offset rights actually operate against a merchant's balance, understanding the operating mechanics, not just the legal language.
• Working knowledge of both ACH returns and card chargebacks, including return-handling and payer-notification workflows.
• Experience standing up or scaling merchant-facing dispute self-service is a plus.
• Experience supporting a live acquirer migration affecting real merchant volume is a plus.
• Familiarity with B2B billing or invoicing platforms and how their risk profile differs from consumer or card-present books is a plus.
• Exposure to treasury or banking-partner relationship management is a plus.

Nice to have

• Experience standing up or scaling merchant-facing dispute self-service is a plus.
• Experience supporting a live acquirer migration affecting real merchant volume is a plus.
• Familiarity with B2B billing or invoicing platforms and how their risk profile differs from consumer or card-present books is a plus.
• Exposure to treasury or banking-partner relationship management is a plus.

Practical notes

This role is based in New York City, 5 days a week at our Soho office.

PERKS AND BENEFITS (FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES)

• Competitive compensation and equity
• Unlimited PTO
• Up to 100% employer covered monthly healthcare premium (medical, dental, vision)
• Lunch provided via Sharebite, plus dinner for any later in office dates