Head of Payment Operations

Caraa; New York (NY); On-site; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Quarterly bonuses

Meaningful equity

Employer-paid health insurance

401(k) match

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

Pockyt is hiring a Head of Payment Operations to own how signed merchants and new payment flows become live, reliable money movement—finely tuned for speed as we scale. You’ll own merchant onboarding, corridor enablement, payouts, and settlement, and you’ll build the operating backbone with SOPs, playbooks, and controls to reduce risk and improve reliability.

This hands‑on, senior operator role sits at the center of the business, working daily with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Finance, and

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on operations at a card acquirer, ISO, PayFac, or processor.
• Fluency in card acquiring mechanics: interchange, rules, disputes, settlement.
• Experience reconciling settlements and onboarding merchants end-to-end.
• Cross-border experience with virtual accounts, international payouts, multiple currencies.

Responsibilities

• Own card acquiring operations, including merchant boarding, disputes, reserves, and daily settlement.
• Own delivery end-to-end from intake through configuration to live activation.
• Own merchant and payment configuration across rails and virtual accounts.
• Run daily payment operations: transactions, payouts, provisioning, funding, settlement.
• Reduce operational risk by building controls, monitoring, and escalation paths.
• Build SOPs, runbooks, and playbooks to scale across corridors and products.
• Define metrics and use them to improve delivery speed and reliability.
• Grow the function by leading a team across new areas and AI-assisted workflows.

Skills

Merchant onboarding

Card acquiring knowledge

Cross-border payments

Stakeholder collaboration

Operational excellence

Job description

About Pockyt

Pockyt is building the AI-native infrastructure for global money movement. We give merchants a single platform to accept payments from anywhere, send money globally, and manage funds through Global Virtual Accounts and stablecoins — but our ambition runs deeper than the rails themselves. We're architecting the connective tissue that lets money move across borders the way information moves across the internet: instantly, intelligently, and autonomously.

We serve a wide spectrum of merchants, from sophisticated enterprise platforms running complex multi-currency operations to the next generation of AI-powered startups, including the one-person unicorns we believe are about to reshape the global economy. Today, that means one integration, one account view, and one place to track everything. Tomorrow, it means a financial layer that AI agents can natively transact on — where money flows are orchestrated, optimized, and reconciled without human bottlenecks.

Our mission is to make global commerce frictionless. We're not building another payments platform. We're building the operating system for how value moves in an agentic, borderless economy.

The Role

We're hiring a Head of Payment Operations to own how Pockyt turns signed merchants and new payment flows into live, reliable money movement — and to make that execution fast, clean, and dependable as we scale. This is a critical senior leadership role reporting directly to the CEO, and it exists to close one of the most important gaps in the business: turning growing demand into flawlessly delivered payment operations.

You’ll own the path from intake to live — merchant boarding and configuration, corridor and rail enablement, payout and Virtual Account setup — and you’ll be personally accountable for delivery timelines and quality. As Pockyt’s volume and complexity grow, you’ll build the processes, controls, and playbooks that make operational excellence repeatable, and reduce the operational risk that comes with high-touch, manual money movement.

Pockyt is launching its card acquiring program this fall, and this role will own its operations from day one: merchant boarding and configuration, the chargeback and dispute lifecycle, reserves and funding, and daily settlement and reconciliation with our processing and banking partners.

You’ll start hands‑on, owning execution directly. As you prove the operating model, you’ll grow into a function leader — building and leading the team that extends payment operations across new corridors, products, and capabilities. You’ll work at the center of the company, partnering daily with Product & Engineering, Compliance, Finance, and Sales.

If you want to own the operating backbone of a company defining the future of cross-border payments — and build the function that scales it — this is it.

What You’ll Do

• Own card acquiring operations — run the operational side of Pockyt's acquiring program: merchant boarding and configuration, disputes through representment, reserves and funding holds, and daily settlement and reconciliation against processor and network reporting
• Own delivery end-to-end — take merchant and corridor requirements from intake through configuration to live, owning the timeline and the outcome so merchants activate quickly and confidently
• Own merchant and payment configuration — be the senior operator accountable for configuration quality across merchants, rails, payouts, and Virtual Accounts, so execution stops depending on stretched individuals
• Run daily payment operations — transaction execution, global payouts, VA provisioning, funding, settlement, and reconciliation — to a relentless standard for speed and reliability
• Reduce operational risk — identify the failure points in high-touch, manual flows and put controls, monitoring, and clear escalation paths in place as volume scales
• Build the operating layer — the SOPs, runbooks, escalation paths, and controls that make operational excellence repeatable across every corridor and product we launch
• Define the metrics that matter — cycle times, delivery SLAs, quality, and reliability — and use them to continuously raise the bar
• Grow the function — as the operating model proves out, build and lead the team that extends payment operations across new areas, and champion AI‑assisted automation of the highest‑leverage manual workflows

Serve as the operational hub across the company:

• Product & Engineering — translate merchant and corridor needs into clear specs and drive configuration and rail enablement to launch
• Compliance — partner on approvals, reviews, RFI loops, and controls so new flows go live cleanly and stay ahead of risk
• Finance — align on pricing configuration, funding, reconciliation, and settlement
• Sales — accelerate onboarding and activation for new merchants and give the revenue team clear, confident timelines

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years of hands‑on operations at a card acquirer, ISO, PayFac, or processor, where you personally boarded and configured merchants, worked disputes through representment, and reconciled settlement files
• Deep hands‑on fluency in card acquiring mechanics — interchange and scheme fees, network and dispute rules, chargebacks, reserves, settlement, and reconciliation — plus working knowledge of ACH return codes and SWIFT/wire routing
• Demonstrated ability to personally work a transaction, reconcile a settlement file, or configure a merchant account — this is a builder‑operator role
• Cross‑border expertise — hands‑on experience with Virtual Accounts, international payouts, multi‑currency flows, and the partner and rail ecosystem that powers them
• A builder‑operator profile: you execute with excellence today and architect the systems that scale for tomorrow
• Proven ability to drive outcomes across Product, Engineering, Compliance, Finance, and commercial teams — technically fluent, clear in your requirements, and able to move cross‑functional work to done
• Strong ownership and follow‑through — you close loops, hit dates, and hold a high bar for yourself and the function you build
• A senior, independent operator who can hold the function with minimal oversight and bring order to complexity
• Excellent written and verbal communication — you’ll present to executives regularly and write the specs, playbooks, and post‑mortems others operate from

This is a hands‑on operator role, not a payments strategy, product, or partnerships role. Experience limited to card issuing or corporate treasury won’t be the right fit.

Bonus Points

• Experience building or scaling an operations function at a fast‑moving or growth‑stage company
• Background in digital wallets, treasury, or financial reconciliation
• Familiarity with RegTech, compliance operations, KYC/KYB workflows, or transaction monitoring
• Enthusiasm for AI‑assisted and agentic operational workflows — you're excited to replace manual work with durable systems

How You’ll Work

• Rhythm: Intake configuration launch measure and iterate; own delivery timelines and report outcomes on a regular executive cadence
• Collaboration: Daily collaboration with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Finance, and Sales
• Quality bar: Reliable, well‑controlled money movement; every corridor launched with a documented, scalable operating model; metrics on every flow you own
• Function building: Start as the hands‑on owner; establish the operating standards and playbooks, then build the team that scales behind you

Success looks like:

the card acquiring program live with clean, well‑controlled settlement and dispute operations within your first two quarters; clean, reliable daily operations and faster merchant/corridor activation from your first quarter; a documented library of SOPs, runbooks, and controls the company operates from; reduced operational risk across high‑touch flows; and a clear path from hands‑on ownership to a scaled operating function.

Why Pockyt

• Own a function critical to the company's growth, with direct work with the CEO and senior leadership from day one
• Start hands‑on and grow into building and leading the team behind you as the operating model scales
• Shape how Pockyt operates as it expands across corridors, products, and markets
• Quarterly bonuses and meaningful equity, vesting over 4‑years with a 1‑year cliff
• Plus employer‑paid health insurance, 401(k) match, and unlimited PTO