Underwriting Manager, High Risk Merchants

PAYNOTE; Miami (FL); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

PayNote in Miami, FL is seeking an Underwriting Manager to own merchant underwriting end-to-end and write the playbook. You will underwrite high-risk merchants hands-on from day one while shaping the underwriting process, risk policy, and the systems that power the PayNote platform.

As volume grows, you will hire and lead a small underwriting team, translate policy into product requirements, and define decision logic and analytics to drive measurable improvements.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in merchant/payments underwriting, with meaningful experience in high-risk verticals (ISO, PSP, payfac, or acquiring bank).
• 1+ years leading people or owning an underwriting function.
• Working knowledge of card-brand high-risk programs, MATCH/TMF, NACHA rules, KYC/KYB/AML requirements.
• Proven track record of building or significantly improving an underwriting process.
• Comfort working with product and engineering: writing requirements, defining decision logic, evaluating data vendors.

Responsibilities

• Underwrite (hands-on): Review and decision new merchant applications in high-risk verticals.
• Perform KYC/KYB, beneficial-ownership, credit, processing-history, and website/business-model reviews.
• Set reserves, processing limits, and pricing-risk terms; run periodic re-underwriting of the existing portfolio.
• Build the system: design underwriting policy from scratch, create decisioning rules, and plan data-vendor integrations.
• Translate policy into product requirements and ship underwriting tooling with measurable metrics.
• Lead: hire, train, and manage underwriters as volume scales; own KPIs and report portfolio risk.

Skills

Merchant underwriting

High-risk verticals

Leadership

KYC/KYB

SQL/Excel

Policy design

Automation thinking

Tools

KYC tooling

Fraud monitoring tools

Job description

Location: Miami, FL (Hybrid) · Type: Full-time

About the Role

PayNote is scaling its merchant base in high-risk verticals, and we're hiring our first Underwriting Manager to own merchant underwriting end to end. This isn\'t a \"follow the playbook\" role — you\'ll write the playbook. You\'ll underwrite high-risk merchants hands-on from day one while designing the underwriting process, risk policy, and systems that get built directly into the PayNote platform. As volume grows, you\'ll hire and lead a small underwriting team.

We\'re looking for a systems thinker: someone who doesn\'t just clear a queue, but asks \"how should this decision be made every time, by anyone (or by software)?\" and turns that answer into documented workflows, decision matrices, and automation requirements our product team can ship.

What You\'ll Do

Underwrite (hands-on)

• Review and decision new merchant applications in high-risk verticals (e.g., CBD, nutraceuticals, debt services, telemedicine, subscription/continuity billing)
• Perform KYC/KYB, beneficial-ownership, credit, processing-history, and website/business-model reviews
• Set reserves, processing limits, and pricing-risk terms; run periodic re-underwriting of the existing portfolio

Build the system

• Design our underwriting policy from scratch: risk-tier framework, vertical-specific criteria, document requirements, approval matrices, and SLAs
• Translate that policy into product requirements — automated decisioning rules, data-vendor integrations (KYB/KYC, MATCH, credit, fraud signals), and queue workflows inside PayNote
• Partner with engineering and product to test, iterate, and ship underwriting tooling; define the metrics that prove it works (approval rate, time-to-decision, loss rate, false-positive rate)
• Document everything so the process survives beyond any one person

Lead

• Hire, train, and manage underwriters as volume scales
• Own underwriting KPIs and report portfolio risk to leadership
• Act as escalation point for complex or borderline merchants
• Keep policy aligned with card-brand rules, NACHA, sponsor-bank requirements, and BSA/AML obligations

What We\'re Looking For

• 5+ years in merchant/payments underwriting, with meaningful experience in high-risk verticals (ISO, PSP, payfac, or acquiring bank)
• 1+ years leading people or owning an underwriting function
• Working knowledge of card-brand high-risk programs, MATCH/TMF, NACHA rules, KYC/KYB/AML requirements
• Proven track record of building or substantially improving an underwriting process — not just operating one
• Comfort working with product/engineering: writing requirements, defining decision logic, evaluating data vendors
• Analytical and data-fluent (Excel/SQL a plus); structured, documentation-first work style
• Sound judgment under ambiguity — able to make defensible calls without a complete rulebook (because at first, you\'re writing it)

Nice to Have

• ACH/check-based payments experience (we live in this world)
• Experience at an early-stage fintech building a function from zero
• Familiarity with fraud/risk-monitoring tooling and chargeback/return-rate management

Why Join

• Founding-level ownership of a core function with direct CEO/leadership access
• Your decisions get built into the product — you shape software, not just policy
• Fast-growing, profitable fintech in payments' most interesting (and hardest) segment

PayNote is an equal opportunity employer.