Payments Operations Lead

Tabs
New York, NY

Who this role is best for

Strong fit for candidates with a payments operations background who build systems and strategies, and who are experienced in high-stakes environments with a focus on B2B risk management and precision over throughput.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with experience building payment processes from scratch in high-growth environments
    — “You'll set the standard for how Tabs runs payments, not maintain one someone else already built.
  • Individuals with a track record of managing financial risk and merchant onboarding at scale
    — “You'll own the risk register Map every way a chargeback, return, or merchant failure could cost Tabs money.
  • Candidates who have worked with payment facilitators or platforms and understand B2B risk profiles
    — “Experience supporting a live acquirer migration affecting real merchant volume is a plus.

Things to consider

  • The role requires daily attention to reconciliation and real-time payment tracking
    — “Run reconciliation Know where every dollar sits across balance accounts and settlement, daily.
  • Candidates must be comfortable with early-stage roles where processes are undefined
    — “Builder Mentality. You’re energized by early-stage environments where processes are still being written.
  • The position is based in New York City and requires in-office presence
    — “This role is based in New York City, 5 days a week at our Soho office.

How to stand out

  • Highlight your experience in designing payment systems, not just operating them
    — “You'll build the function Choose the systems, define the architecture, and hire the team that comes after you.
  • Emphasize your ability to define and manage reserve strategies and risk thresholds
    — “Set reserve strategy Define reserve amounts by merchant tier, negative balance triggers, and offset and clawback mechanics.
  • Demonstrate your understanding of ACH returns and card chargebacks with specific examples
    — “Working knowledge of both ACH returns and card chargebacks, including return-handling and payer-notification workflows.
  • Showcase your ability to influence cross-functional teams like Legal and Engineering
    — “You can read a payments addendum and a webhook payload in the same afternoon, and change Legal’s or Engineering’s mind when you’re right.
  • Position yourself as metrics-driven with clear KPI ownership and decision-making
    — “Metrics-Driven. You set thresholds, track KPIs (chargeback rates, reconciliation breaks, reserve adequacy, false positive rates), and make decisions based on data.
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · CompanyLevel · Mid

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • reduced fraud losses
  • improved reconciliation accuracy
Typical background
payments operationsrisk management

Skills & requirements

Required

Payments OperationsRisk ManagementFraud PreventionAML Compliance

Preferred

Ai/ml In Finance

About the role

Original posting from Tabs via Ashby

Tabs is the leading AI-native revenue platform for modern finance and accounting teams. Tabs agents automate the entire contract-to-cash lifecycle, including billing, collections, revenue recognition, and reporting, to help teams eliminate manual work and accelerate cash flow.

High-growth companies like Cursor and Statsig rely on Tabs to generate invoices directly from contracts, reconcile payments in real time, and automate ASC 606 compliance.

Founded in 2023, Tabs has raised over $91 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners https://lsvp.com, General Catalyst https://www.generalcatalyst.com, and Primary https://www.primary.vc. The team is headquartered in New York and brings deep expertise in finance and AI.

About the Role

We're hiring a Payments Operations Lead in New York to build and own payment operations as Tabs brings payments in-house. This is a founding role on a new team, reporting to the VP of Finance.

Tabs is moving billions of dollars of gross payment volume onto our own rails. You'll own how that money moves and how it's protected: reconciliation, disputes, reserves, fraud, and merchant risk. Our volume is ACH-first with a growing card share, and our merchants are few, large, and high-value, so the work rewards precision over throughput.

You'll set the standard for how Tabs runs payments, not maintain one someone else already built.

What You’ll Do

  • Build the function Choose the systems, define the architecture, and hire the team that comes after you. You decide what we build versus buy.
  • Own the risk register Map every way a chargeback, return, or merchant failure could cost Tabs money. Set detection triggers and remediation paths before each merchant goes live.
  • Set reserve strategy Define reserve amounts by merchant tier, negative balance triggers, and offset and clawback mechanics. Own the thresholds and escalation paths.
  • Run reconciliation Know where every dollar sits across balance accounts and settlement, daily. Build the cadence, the alerting thresholds, and the break-investigation process.
  • Set fraud and compliance posture Own the AML policy, the merchant acceptance policy, and the risk relationship with our payment partners.
  • Own disputes and chargebacks Build the merchant self-service system: evidence flow, deadlines, and escalation path. You own the outcome, not a queue.
  • Scale onboarding and migration Make underwriting, merchant sign-up, and acquirer migration hold up as we go from dozens of merchants to hundreds.

Who You Are

  • Systems and Strategy Builder. You ask “what happens when a merchant goes bankrupt” before it happens, and architect for it ahead of time, rather than running the fire drill well. You think in terms of how systems scale and where the pressure points will be.
  • Sound Under Real Stakes. You’ve made the call on a reserve, a reconciliation break, or a fraud exception where being wrong cost real money — and you can explain why you made it.
  • Cross-Functional Range. You can read a payments addendum and a webhook payload in the same afternoon, and change Legal’s or Engineering’s mind when you’re right.
  • Builder Mentality. You’re energized by early-stage environments where processes are still being written and your impact is visible.
  • Metrics-Driven. You set thresholds, track KPIs (chargeback rates, reconciliation breaks, reserve adequacy, false positive rates), and make decisions based on data, not hunches. You know what good looks like and can measure it.
  • High Ownership. You bring energy, accountability, and a bias toward action — especially when things are moving fast.

Experience

  • 5+ years in payments operations, risk, or fraud and dispute operations, including at least 2 years at a payment facilitator, processor, or platform — Stripe (Connect), Adyen for Platforms, Square/Block, Shopify Payments, or similar
  • A track record of building the process, not just operating one someone else designed
  • Fluency in how reserves, holdbacks, and offset rights actually operate against a merchant’s balance — the operating mechanics, not just the legal language
  • Working knowledge of both ACH returns and card chargebacks, including return-handling and payer-notification workflows
  • Experience standing up or scaling merchant-facing dispute self-service is a plus
  • Experience supporting a live acquirer migration affecting real merchant volume is a plus
  • Familiarity with B2B billing or invoicing platforms and how their risk profile differs from consumer or card-present books is a plus
  • Exposure to treasury or banking-partner relationship management is a plus

Additional Information

This role is based in New York City, 5 days a week at our Soho office.

PERKS AND BENEFITS (FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES)

  • Competitive compensation and equity
  • Unlimited PTO
  • Up to 100% employer covered monthly healthcare premium (medical, dental, vision)
  • Lunch provided via Sharebite, plus dinner for any later in office days.
  • Parental leave up to 12 weeks
  • Tax free commuter and parking benefits
  • Voluntary insurances (Life, Hospital, Critical Illness, Accident)
  • Employee Assistance Program (Rightway)
  • Free One Medical Membership
  • 401k

Tabs is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome teammates of all identities and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. We’re committed to creating an environment where everyone can grow, contribute, and feel comfortable being themselves.

Source: Tabs careers (Ashby)

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