Senior Manager, Payment Operations

Forward; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity package

Health, dental, and vision benefits

Flexible work arrangements

Generous PTO

Learning & development budget

Job summary

Forward is seeking a Senior Manager, Payment Operations in Austin, TX to lead the payment operations function and drive scalable, compliant processes across card, ACH, and real-time rails. You'll own initiatives from conception to production, mentor a team of specialists, and partner with Product, Engineering, and Finance to design guardrails and playbooks that speed growth while protecting merchants and partners.

You bring 8+ years in payments, strong recon, and hands-on leadership.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in payments operations at a fintech, processor, or sponsor bank.
• 3+ years of people management.
• Deep knowledge of reconciliation and funds flow.
• Experience with card networks (Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Discover) and NACHA timing.
• Hands-on with disputes, collections, and negative balance recovery.
• First-line control, audits, and remediation experience.
• Data-driven with SQL or source data validation; able to use AI to design workflows.
• Startup experience and comfort with ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Own initiatives from problem to production, including business cases and roadmaps.
• Scale merchant operations across disputes, refunds, and account maintenance.
• Improve payouts, reconciliation, and funds flow processes.
• Coach team leads and run regular operating reviews.
• Ensure controls operate as designed and support audits.
• Turn operational problems into cross-functional requirements.
• Work with Product, Engineering, and Finance to implement solutions.

Skills

Payments operations

Team leadership

Reconciliation & funds flow

Card rails & ACH

Disputes & collections

Data fluency & AI tooling

Startup experience

Job description

Senior Manager, Payment Operations

Austin, Texas

About Us

Forward is building the next generation of embedded payments. We help software companies monetize payments leveraging Forward's best-in-class products and innovations combined with a transparent collaborative approach to growing their business. We are seeking a Senior Manager, Payment Operations to lead our payment operations function.

Position Overview

Our Risk, Compliance & Operations team keeps our merchants' and partners' money moving safely while the business grows fast.

This is a builder-leader role. You combine payments judgment, operational execution, control design, and cross-functional delivery. You take a piece of the roadmap from requirements to a live, validated, owned system. You understand how the pieces connect end to end, and you finish work to a standard that holds up after launch.

You will lead our payment operations function and the team who runs it day to day. We have specialists who excel in their domains and operators who keep the day-to-day running. This role works across those teams: designing systems, connecting the pieces, and building the playbooks and guardrails that let teams scale.

You report to our head of Risk, Compliance & Operations and act as their delegate on strategic initiatives and day-to-day operations.

We treat risk work as a growth lever. Controls protect merchants, partners, and our license to operate. They do not exist for their own sake.

What you'll do

You own outcomes, not status updates. For each initiative, you take it from problem to production: write or pressure-test the business case, drive the build, validate it against real merchant and partner data, document it, and hand it to a named steady-state owner.

Scale merchant operations

Partner with the team that runs disputes and chargebacks, collections and negative balances, refunds and reversals, account maintenance, and offboarding. Lead process, tooling, automation, and capacity work alongside them.

Strengthen how money moves

Improve the processes, controls, and reporting behind payouts, reconciliation, and funds flow across card, ACH, and real-time rails.

Develop your team leads

Coach, set priorities together, and run a regular operating review.

Support the first line of defense

Make sure controls in your area operate as designed and remediation closes. Compliance owns the second line. You are their point of contact for audits and control assessments of your area, and you provide first-line evidence on request.

Recommend decisions with data

Investigate exposure, loss, and break trends, backtest changes, and bring a recommendation with its impact on losses and merchant experience.

Work across functions

Turn operational problems into requirements Product, Engineering, and Finance can build.

What you bring

• 8+ years in payments operations at a payment facilitator, acquirer, processor, sponsor bank, money transmitter, or fintech, including 3+ years managing people.
• Experience scaling an operations function through rapid growth or a transition between teams.
• Deep knowledge of reconciliation and funds flow: processor and bank files, reserves, and how to trace a dollar from authorization to payout.
• Working knowledge of card rails (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover) and ACH (Nacha timing, returns, Reg E).
• Hands-on experience with disputes, collections, and negative balance recovery.
• First-line control experience: running controls, supporting audits and control assessments, and closing findings.
• Data and AI fluency. You work in SQL or source data directly and check the record before you trust the number. You use AI tools to analyze, write, and design workflows, and you validate their output before anyone relies on it.
• Startup experience. You are comfortable with ambiguity, wearing many hats, and starting work without being asked.

Nice to have

• Experience leading team leads or managers.
• Experience with RTP or other real-time payment rails.
• Working knowledge of money transmission requirements.
• Experience at a payment facilitator or with embedded payments for software platforms.
• Experience managing processor or bank partner relationships.
• Experience with payment operations in both the US and Canada.

How you work

• You care about the business on the other side of every case. A held payout is urgent because it is urgent to the merchant.
• Every decision you make is explainable. "Risk said no" is never the full answer.
• You defend the number, not the instinct, and you explain it in language the room can act on.
• You lead through your experts. You make your team leads better, not less necessary.
• You own work through to the finish. It is not done until it is live, measured, and run by someone who can own it without you.
• In an escalation, you get the facts and the right people in one place before acting.
• You are a student of payments. You keep learning, ask why, and build a working model of the system before you change it.

Why join us

Forward is growing quickly, and payment operations sits at the center of that growth. You will join early enough to shape how this function works and work directly with the leadership team. Because we own our risk and underwriting model, the decisions you make here change how merchants and partners experience Forward. You will work across card, ACH, and real-time rails, and partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Finance.

Location

Austin, TX. Hybrid, with in-office and remote days each week.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary and equity package.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits.
• Flexible work arrangements and generous PTO.
• Learning & development budget for conferences, courses, and certifications.