Lead, Payment Operations Strategy & Automation

Company Description Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money. Min fees. Max ease. Full speed. Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their lives easier and save them money. As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money. For everyone, everywhere. More about our mission and what we offer. Job Description We're hiring someone to lead the operational side of how Wise handles payments that don't 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 don't — 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 doesn't just track volume linearly. So we've made a deliberate bet: over the next three years, we're 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. That's the shift you'd lead. The role You'd 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, you'd: 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. You're 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 1–2: 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 2–4: Co-shape the next roadmap cycle. Ship the first AI-assisted workflow in production. Stand up the eval framework. Month 4–6: Deliver measurable improvement against the operating-model targets. Establish the operating rhythm for how the team and its product-engineering partners work together. What you'd 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 — you've 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 we're 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 isn't a reporting role Career people-managers with no IC depth in the last 3–5 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 isn't a role where you inherit a system and maintain it. You'll 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 don't have to build that from scratch. A leader who's done the job. You get a manager who understands the terrain, not someone who'll 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 — you've 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 we're not looking for: Project or Program Managers — this role owns outcomes, not delivery coordination Business Intelligence or Data Analysts — SQL fluency matters, but this isn't a reporting role Career people-managers with no IC depth in the last 3–5 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. We're people building money without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive. We're 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 it's like to work at Wise visit Wise.Jobs. Keep up to date with life at Wise by following us on LinkedIn and Instagram.