Senior Director, Payments

Jobtailor; Jersey City (NJ); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor in Jersey City, NJ is seeking a senior payments leader to own the full payments lifecycle and drive performance across the payments ecosystem. You will partner with Product, Engineering, Risk, Finance, and Operations to deliver a seamless, customer-first payments experience.

The role requires 10-15+ years in payments or fintech and a proven track record of managing large-scale ecosystems, cost optimization, and KPI-driven performance.

Qualifications

• 10-15+ years in payments, fintech, or financial services.
• Experience owning large-scale payment ecosystems (cards, ACH, wallets, APMs).
• Proven leadership and vendor-management capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Own the full payments lifecycle, including deposits, withdrawals, reversals, refunds, and reconciliation.
• Act as business owner for payments performance and customer experience, partnering with Product, Engineering, Risk, Finance, and Operations.
• Drive a customer-first payments journey with speed, reliability, and ease of use across touchpoints.
• Own strategic management of PSPs, processors, gateways, banks, and payment partners.
• Lead Payment Operations and optimize routing strategies to balance cost, conversion, and reliability.
• Own vendor pricing negotiations and economic modeling to improve margins.
• Report on core payment KPIs: authorization rates, deposit/withdrawal success, cost per transaction, chargebacks.

Skills

Payments leadership

Vendor negotiation

Data-driven decisions

Cross-functional leadership

Executive presence

Regulatory compliance

KPI management

Cost optimization

Fraud prevention

Performance optimization

Job description

• Own the full payments lifecycle: deposits, withdrawals, reversals, refunds, and reconciliation


• Act as the business owner for payments performance and customer experience, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, Risk, Finance, and Operations to drive outcomes


• Drive a customer-first payments journey, ensuring speed, reliability, and ease of use across all touchpoints


• Own the strategic management of PSPs, processors, gateways, banks, and payment partners across the payment's ecosystem


• Serve as the primary business owner for vendor performance, relationship governance, contract value, and partner accountability


• Hold partners accountable to performance SLAs, uptime, authorization rates, speed, reliability, and issue resolution


• Identify, evaluate, negotiate with, and onboard new providers to expand capabilities, improve economics, and increase resiliency


• Lead Payment Operations, identifying and resolving friction points across the end-to-end user journey


• Ensure fast, reliable deposits and withdrawals, minimizing failures, delays, and customer friction


• Drive operational improvements in exceptions, retries, reversals, and escalations


• Optimize payment transaction costs across all methods (cards, ACH, wallets, APMs)


• Lead routing and processor strategies to balance cost, conversion, and reliability


• Own vendor pricing negotiations and economic modeling to drive margin improvement


• Own and report on all core payment KPIs, including: Authorization / approval rates, Deposit conversion and success rates, Withdrawal speed and completion rates, Cost per transaction, Chargebacks and return rates


• Establish a data-driven operating cadence to monitor and continuously improve performance


• Own alignment with payments compliance, AML, and regulatory requirements for digital customers


• Partner closely with Risk & Fraud to optimize approval rates vs. loss prevention


• Ensure adherence to card network rules, NACHA, and jurisdictional regulations


• Partner with: Payment Product Team to shape the roadmap, prioritization, and feature delivery, Architecture & Engineering to build and scale the payments platform (orchestration, routing, resiliency)

Requirements

• 10-15+ years in payments, fintech, or financial services


• 2+ years in mobile Sports & iCasino payments a plus but not necessary


• Proven ownership of large-scale payment ecosystems (cards, ACH, wallets, APMs)


• Deep expertise in processors, PSPs, gateways, and transaction flows


• Strong track record optimizing cost, conversion, and fraud trade-offs


• Experience leading vendor negotiations and partner management


• Strong understanding of fraud, chargebacks, AML, and payment compliance


• Experience building or scaling payment platforms / orchestration layers


• Highly data-driven, with strong ownership of KPIs and financial performance


• Proven leader with executive presence, able to drive cross-functional execution and influence senior stakeholders

Core Competencies

Demonstrates extensive expertise in managing the full payments lifecycle, including deposits, withdrawals, and reconciliations, while optimizing performance metrics and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive strategic partnerships to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Payments Lifecycle Management


• Vendor Negotiation


• Payments Compliance


• Data-Driven Performance Optimization


• Cross-Functional Leadership

ATS Optimization Keywords

Hard Skills

• Payments Ecosystem Management


• Transaction Flow Optimization


• Cost Optimization Strategies


• Fraud Prevention Techniques


• KPI Management


• Payment Platform Development


• AML Compliance


• Chargeback Management


• Authorization Rate Improvement


• Payment Method Expertise

Soft Skills

• Executive Presence


• Cross-Functional Collaboration


• Stakeholder Influence


• Customer-Centric Mindset


• Problem Solving

Industry Keywords

• Fintech


• Financial Services


• PSPs


• Gateways


• ACH


• APMs


• Mobile Payments


• Sports Betting Payments


• ICasino Payments


• Regulatory Compliance