Lead, Payment Operations Strategy & Automation

Were hiring someone to lead the operational side of how Wise handles payments that dont complete cleanly and to help redesign that operation for a world where AI agents do most of the work.

Why this role exists

Wise moves money across borders for millions of customers globally. Most payments go through cleanly. Some dont they get delayed returned misrouted or need a human to step in. Those payments are handled by the Payment Operations function.

Wise is on a long-term growth trajectory and operational handling needs to scale in a way that doesnt just track volume linearly. So weve made a deliberate bet: over the next three years were rebuilding Payment Operations into a hybrid human AI operating model where AI agents execute the majority of frontline work and humans move from handlers to designers monitors and escalators of agent-driven systems.

Thats the shift youd lead.

The role

Youd own Central Payment Operations at the function level: a team of Product Specialists and Technical Leads embedded alongside our Payment Defects & Incidents product-engineering squad. Together you and the product-engineering squad share one roadmap one vision and one mission.

Concretely youd:

• Own the outcome. Move our core operational metrics cost first-resolution rate defect rate operational loss at scale.

• Co-shape the roadmap with the Product Manager and Engineering Lead. Youre the operations voice in every strategy conversation and the technical/product voice back into operations.

• Design the AI transition. Ship AI-assisted workflows in production. Define and build the evaluation and observability foundations. Prove the design patterns that scale.

• Build the leadership bench. Grow the senior individual contributors and Technical Leads reporting to you into future leaders.

• Represent the function in Risk Compliance Analytics Workforce Management Quality Training Internal Audit and PayOps leadership forums.

This role reports to the Head of Central Payment Operations.

What the first 6 months look like

• Month 12: Land. Meet the team product-engineering partners and cross-functional stakeholders. Understand the current operational landscape and the shape of the biggest cost drivers.

• Month 24: Co-shape the next roadmap cycle. Ship the first AI-assisted workflow in production. Stand up the eval framework.

• Month 46: Deliver measurable improvement against the operating-model targets. Establish the operating rhythm for how the team and its product-engineering partners work together.

What youd bring

Must have:

• 6 years in operations product-ops or product roles at fintech / payments / high-growth tech with clear ownership of a domain end-to-end (problem design shipped outcome measurable impact)

• Direct experience partnering with a Product Manager and Engineering Lead to co-shape a roadmap

• Hands-on experience with at least one shipped AI agent or LLM-driven workflow in an operational or product context

• SQL literacy and code literacy: comfortable using AI tools to move fast on data and code and knowing enough to validate what they produce

• A working understanding of software development principles enough to size effort vs impact and challenge engineers on trade-offs

• Executive presence: comfortable presenting to and pushing back in senior operations product and engineering forums

• Coaching instinct youve grown senior individual contributors into future leaders not just managed them

• Storytelling: you can turn a technical/operational reality into a strategic narrative that lands with non-technical audiences

Nice to have:

• Payments banking or regulated financial services background

• Experience taking organisations through an operating-model transition

• Experience defining eval frameworks observability or human-in-the-loop design for AI/agent systems

• Familiarity with modern AI tooling LLM APIs agent frameworks prompt/eval design

What were not looking for:

Being explicit up front worth 5 minutes of your reading time.

• Project or Program Managers this role owns outcomes not delivery coordination

• Business Intelligence or Data Analysts SQL fluency matters but this isnt a reporting role

• Career people-managers with no IC depth in the last 35 years you have to be credible with engineers and with ops

• Consultants or strategists without shipped outcomes we need a builder

• Ops leaders whose track record is scaling headcount our thesis is different

• AI skeptics low conviction on AI is a hard no for this role

What we can offer

• A real mandate. This isnt a role where you inherit a system and maintain it. Youll shape how Wise handles payment operations at scale for the next chapter of the company.

• A team that already partners deeply with product and engineering. You dont have to build that from scratch.

• A leader whos done the job. You get a manager who understands the terrain not someone wholl ask you to explain it.

• Real career pathways. PayOps leadership business operations across servicing product/analytics or leading agentic-ops functions.

Qualifications :

Must have:

• 6 years in operations product-ops or product roles at fintech / payments / high-growth tech with clear ownership of a domain end-to-end (problem design shipped outcome measurable impact)

• Direct experience partnering with a Product Manager and Engineering Lead to co-shape a roadmap

• Hands-on experience with at least one shipped AI agent or LLM-driven workflow in an operational or product context

• SQL literacy and code literacy: comfortable using AI tools to move fast on data and code and knowing enough to validate what they produce

• A working understanding of software development principles enough to size effort vs impact and challenge engineers on trade-offs

• Executive presence: comfortable presenting to and pushing back in senior operations product and engineering forums

• Coaching instinct youve grown senior individual contributors into future leaders not just managed them

• Storytelling: you can turn a technical/operational reality into a strategic narrative that lands with non-technical audiences

Nice to have:

• Payments banking or regulated financial services background

• Experience taking organisations through an operating-model transition

• Experience defining eval frameworks observability or human-in-the-loop design for AI/agent systems

• Familiarity with modern AI tooling LLM APIs agent frameworks prompt/eval design

What were not looking for:

• Project or Program Managers this role owns outcomes not delivery coordination

• Business Intelligence or Data Analysts SQL fluency matters but this isnt a reporting role

• Career people-managers with no IC depth in the last 35 years you have to be credible with engineers and with ops

• Consultants or strategists without shipped outcomes we need a builder

• Ops leaders whose track record is scaling headcount our thesis is different

• AI skeptics low conviction on AI is a hard no for this role

Additional Information :

For everyone everywhere. Were people building money without borders  without judgement or prejudice too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse equitable and inclusive.

Were proud to have a truly international team and we celebrate our differences.
Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected empowered to contribute towards our mission and able to progress in their careers.

If you want to find out more about what its like to work at Wise visit .

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Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time