Payment Operations Lead

Mercury; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 135,000 - 168,700; Full time

Job summary

Mercury is building a complete finance stack for startups. We’re seeking a Payment Operations Lead to scale our operational desks across international and domestic wires, RTP, ACH, and checks, while preserving accuracy and speed.

You will lead a high-trust team, design workflows, and implement tooling and AI-enabled processes to improve efficiency and reliability as Mercury grows.

Qualifications

• 3–5+ years in payments, banking operations, or related operational function.
• Experience leading an operations team with clear expectations and rhythm.
• Knowledge of payment rails (international/domestic wires, RTP, ACH, checks) and regulated environments.
• Interest in scalable operations through tooling, automation, dashboards, and AI.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a Payment Operations team with clear priorities and coaching.
• Build and scale desks across payment rails, including workflows, controls, and quality standards.
• Guide decision-making around exceptions, investigations, and compliance considerations.
• Improve efficiency via processes, tooling, automation, and AI-enabled workflows.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, and Banking Partnerships.
• Define and track metrics for productivity, quality, SLA adherence, and performance.
• Foster a culture of ownership, urgency, and high quality.

Skills

Payments knowledge

Team leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Process improvement

Job description

In the early days of the telephone, switchboard operators were the invisible infrastructure of modern communication. They connected calls by hand, memorized patterns, resolved routing problems in real time, and kept whole cities speaking to one another.

Their work was technical, precise, human, and operationally essential. As networks grew, the best systems preserved the operator’s judgment while automating the repetitive paths.

Mercury is building a complete finance stack for startups. We work hard to create the easiest and safest banking* experience possible, so entrepreneurs and business owners can spend less time managing financial complexity and more time building what comes next.

Underneath that experience is a network of payment rails, bank partners, operational desks, controls, exceptions, and workflows that keep customer funds moving safely and reliably. These rails include international wires, domestic wires, RTP, ACH, and checks. When it all works, customers do not have to think about the machinery underneath. Their money lands where it should, when it should, with clarity and confidence.

We’re looking for a Payment Operations Lead to help build and scale the operational desks that support Mercury Bank’s payment rails. You’ll bring deep payments knowledge, strong team leadership, and a systems-minded approach to making operational work more efficient through process design, tooling, automation, and AI.

This is a high-trust role for someone who understands both the precision and pace required in payment operations. You’ll lead a team responsible for keeping money movement running smoothly across international wires, domestic wires, RTP, ACH, and checks, improving how work gets done, and building the operating rhythms, controls, and tools that help Mercury scale without losing quality.

*Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

In this role, you’ll:

• Lead and develop a Payment Operations team responsible for supporting Mercury Bank’s payment rails, ensuring the team has clear priorities, strong operating standards, and the coaching needed to do excellent work.
• Build and scale payment operations desks across international wires, domestic wires, RTP, ACH, and checks, including the workflows, escalation paths, controls, documentation, and quality standards needed to support reliable money movement at increasing volume.
• Bring deep payments expertise to operational decision-making, helping the team navigate exceptions, investigations, returns, rejects, recalls, partner requirements, and the tradeoffs that come with moving money in a regulated environment.
• Improve operational efficiency through better processes, tooling, automation, AI-enabled workflows, dashboards, and measurement systems that reduce manual effort while preserving judgment and control.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, Banking Partnerships, and other Operations teams to identify bottlenecks, improve workflows, and ensure payment operations are built for scale.
• Define and track the metrics that matter for payment operations, including productivity, quality, SLA adherence, exception trends, control health, payment rail performance, and customer or partner impact.
• Create a culture of ownership, urgency, and high quality, where the team understands not just what needs to happen, but why it matters for customers, partners, and Mercury.

You should:

• Have 3-5+ years of experience in payments, banking operations, payment operations, business operations, or a related operational function, ideally in a financial institution, bank, fintech, or regulated technology company.
• Bring deep working knowledge of payment rails such as international wires, domestic wires, RTP, ACH, and checks, including money movement operations, payment exceptions, operational risk, controls, and the systems that support reliable payment processing.
• Have experience leading, coaching, or managing an operations team, with a track record of setting clear expectations, improving performance, and building strong team operating rhythms.
• Be excited to make operations more scalable through process improvement, tooling, automation, AI, documentation, dashboards, and thoughtful measurement.
• Understand how to operate in a regulated environment, including how to balance speed, customer experience, risk, compliance, and operational quality.
• Communicate clearly and calmly, especially when work is complex, cross-functional, urgent, or sensitive.
• Have a high degree of ownership. You notice where the system is fragile, unclear, or too manual, and you take responsibility for making it better.
• Be comfortable working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, Banking Partnerships, and other teams to turn operational realities into better systems.

Compensation:

• The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options/RSUs), and benefits.
• Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry. New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.
• Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:
• US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $135,000 - $168,700 USD
• US employees outside of New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $121,500 - $151,800 USD

Mercury values diversity & belonging and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All individuals seeking employment at Mercury are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other legally protected characteristic. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for applicants with disabilities or special needs. If you need assistance, or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know once you are contacted about a role.