Director of Payments and Risk Operations

Director of Payments and Risk Operations

Tekmetric is seeking a seasoned payments and risk leader to own the full payments operations lifecycle for its growing embedded fintech platform. As Director of Payments and Risk Operations , you will play a critical leadership role in shaping the future of our embedded fintech business. You will build the reporting infrastructure that keeps leadership and cross‑functional partners informed in real time, drive the shift from manual to AI‑assisted decisioning, and serve as the primary operational partner to Stripe. This is a high‑ownership, high‑visibility role for an operator who thrives on data, accountability, and building scalable systems from the ground up.

What You’ll Do

• Own the full payments operations lifecycle: merchant onboarding, underwriting, transaction monitoring, dispute management, and escalation handling.
• Define and manage against core operational metrics: approval rates, loss rates, dispute win rates, time‑to‑decision, and cost per account.
• Build the reporting infrastructure that makes those metrics visible—dashboards, data pipelines, and operational scorecards that give leadership and cross‑functional partners a clear, real‑time view of payments health.
• Use reporting to manage the business: identify trends, surface risk early, drive decisions, and hold the team accountable to outcomes.
• Present operational performance to leadership and cross‑functional stakeholders with clarity and confidence—no hand‑wav­ing on numbers.
• Expand into automated, AI‑assisted decisioning—humans manage exceptions, systems manage volume.
• Deploy rules‑based and AI‑assisted workflows to reduce manual overhead without introducing risk blind spots.
• Own portfolio‑level loss performance—balance growth, risk appetite, and customer experience with real accountability.
• Design and refine underwriting and monitoring strategies as GMV scales; proactively identify emerging risk patterns before they become portfolio problems.
• Maintain controls aligned with Stripe's infrastructure and card network obligations.
• Owner the operational relationship with Stripe and relevant partners.
• Partner with Legal and Finance to maintain compliance reporting, audit readiness, and internal control standards.
• Serve as the central accountability point for Payments Ops across Product, Engineering, CX, Sales, and Finance.
• Build and lead a lean, high‑performing team; evolve existing systems and processes as the payments function matures.

What You Bring

• 8+ years in payments operations, risk, or fintech—vertical SaaS or embedded payments experience strongly preferred.
• Proven track record of owning portfolio‑level KPIs with real accountability—you've held the number, not just supported it.
• Experience building operational reporting infrastructure from the ground up—dashboards, scorecards, and data frameworks that actually get used to run the business.
• Strong analytical instincts—you know which metrics matter, which ones lie, and how to tell the difference.
• Experience leading an operational team through a manual‑to‑automated transition.
• Deep familiarity with acquiring, underwriting, disputes, fraud, and chargeback management.
• Demonstrated success building or deploying AI‑assisted decisioning in an ops context—rules engines, agent workflows, or ML‑informed approaches.
• Stripe experience is required and embedded fintech infrastructure fluency is required.
• Strong cross‑functional operability—comfortable working across multiple departments and driving projects to completion.
• Excellent analytical skills—you can build operational forecasts, set KPIs, and drive decisions from data.

Benefits

Travel is an expected part of every role. Attendance at company‑wide offsites, which are fully supported, is expected.

Health & Wellness

• Enjoy the flexibility of remote work.
• Competitive base salaries that reflect your value.
• Generous paid time off.
• Paid maternity, parental bonding, and medical leave.
• Comprehensive health benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, Prescription—employee‑only plans cover 100% of premiums; we cover 50% for families.
• Free, confidential counseling via BetterHelp.

Investing In Your Future (and Present)

• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan with 100% employer match on contributions up to 6%.
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA).
• Life and AD&D Insurance.
• Up to $60/month toward fitness, mental health, or other wellness.
• After one year of employment, $300 home office setup bonus.
• Support for continuing education.

Additional Notes

Travel is expected for all roles. We offer hybrid and remote work models based on proximity to our office hubs. Attendance at team and company‑wide offsites is supported and expected.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Tekmetric is an equal opportunity employer. We hire hard‑working individuals regardless of gender, race or color, ethnicity or national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We will ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Tekmetric will never ask for your personal financial or banking information or require any financial commitment as part of our candidate search or application process. No job offers will be made without a formal interview process. All legitimate Tekmetric job postings are listed at tekmetric.com/careers. Recruiter communications come from @tekmetric.com email addresses.