Senior Payments Risk Manager

Where We Are Today

8-figure ARR growing 100%+ YoY

Strong unit economics and efficient growth

Rapid merchant adoption and expanding market presence

Backed by experienced operators and investors with a history of building and scaling successful businesses

Why Now

This is a rare opportunity for a technical leader to step into a company with proven revenue, product-market fit, an established team, and a large market opportunity.

Three things make this an inflection point:

1. Product-market fit is established. Demand continues to grow, merchant adoption is accelerating, and Phoenix is outperforming expectations.

2. There is an opportunity to define a category. While many companies are building AI tools for commerce, few are focused on helping sophisticated DTC operators automate revenue-generating decisions at scale.

3. Our customers are AI-ready. They adopt technology quickly when it drives measurable business outcomes, creating an ideal environment for agentic products.

The Role

We are hiring a Senior Payments Risk Manager to help own and scale risk management across Phoenix's growing portfolio of live merchants.

This is a hands-on, post-underwriting risk role focused on what happens after merchants begin processing. You will monitor merchant and transaction activity, identify emerging risks, investigate unusual patterns, and recommend appropriate action.

You'll dig into transaction data, merchant performance, fraud and chargeback trends, and other risk signals to identify issues before they become larger problems. You'll be expected to independently own investigations, follow the data, and come back with clear findings and recommendations to Payments leadership.

While this is a senior role, people management is not the primary focus. We're looking for someone who can operate hands-on, take ownership of complex risk issues, and provide guidance to other members of the team as needed.

Phoenix operates in a fast-moving, high-risk ecommerce environment where priorities can change quickly. This is not a traditional back-office role where every scenario is covered by an SOP. We're looking for someone who is analytical, highly curious, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to independently run with a problem.

What You'll Own

Live Merchant & Portfolio Monitoring

Proactively monitor Phoenix's portfolio of live merchants to identify emerging financial, fraud, operational, and compliance risks.

Analyze:

• Transaction volume and velocity

• Processing trends and anomalies

• Chargeback and dispute activity

• Fraud patterns

• Refund activity

• Merchant performance

• Changes in processing behavior

• Other indicators of elevated merchant risk

Identify unusual patterns early and determine when deeper investigation or intervention is warranted.

Risk Investigations

Own investigations into potentially concerning merchant or transaction activity.

Dig into transaction data, processing history, merchant behavior, and other available information to understand what is happening and why.

Independently take investigations from initial signal through resolution, documenting findings and providing clear, data-driven recommendations to Payments leadership.

Risk Mitigation & Escalation

Recommend appropriate actions based on investigation findings and the level of risk identified.

This may include:

• Reserves or reserve adjustments

• Funding holds

• Processing limits

• Enhanced monitoring

• Fraud controls

• Merchant remediation

• Additional documentation or diligence

• Escalation to processors, acquiring partners, or internal leadership

Balance merchant impact with Phoenix's financial, operational, and reputational risk.

Chargebacks & Fraud

Monitor portfolio-level and merchant-level chargeback and fraud trends.

Identify merchants or transaction patterns showing elevated risk and investigate root causes.

Partner with internal teams to develop appropriate mitigation strategies and help reduce preventable losses.

Risk Monitoring & Process Improvement

Help Phoenix move from reactive risk management toward increasingly proactive monitoring.

Identify opportunities to improve:

• Risk alerts

• Monitoring rules

• Investigation workflows

• Reporting and dashboards

• Escalation processes

• Risk tooling and automation

Partner with Payments leadership, Product, Engineering, and Operations to continuously improve how Phoenix identifies and manages merchant risk at scale.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Work closely with:

• Payments leadership

• Underwriting

• Client Success

• Product

• Engineering

• Operations

• Compliance

Your primary responsibility is identifying and investigating risk. While direct merchant communication may occasionally be helpful, this is not primarily a client-facing role. You will provide other teams with the findings and recommendations they need to manage merchant communication and resolution.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 5+ years of experience across payments risk, merchant risk, transaction monitoring, fraud, merchant acquiring, or related payments functions

• Experience monitoring live merchant portfolios and transaction activity

• Strong investigative skills with the ability to identify unusual patterns, determine root causes, and recommend appropriate action

• Experience analyzing transaction data, processing trends, chargebacks, disputes, fraud, and other merchant risk indicators

• Strong understanding of merchant acquiring and the payments lifecycle

• Experience working with risk controls such as reserves, funding holds, processing limits, enhanced monitoring, or merchant remediation

• Ability to independently own investigations from initial signal through findings and recommendations

• Strong analytical judgment and attention to detail

• Ability to prioritize and shift quickly as new risks or merchant issues emerge

• Comfortable operating with ambiguity rather than relying exclusively on established processes or SOPs

• Strong written and verbal communication skills

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment

Preferred

• Experience with high-risk ecommerce, DTC, subscription, nutraceutical, digital goods, or other elevated-risk merchant portfolios

• Experience within a PayFac, processor, acquirer, ISO, payment gateway, or embedded payments platform

• Experience managing a large portfolio of live merchants

• Experience with chargeback monitoring and fraud investigations

• Experience building or improving transaction-monitoring rules, alerts, dashboards, or investigation workflows

• Experience using data and analytics tools to identify portfolio-level risk trends

• Experience in a startup or high-growth payments environment

• Experience mentoring or guiding junior risk analysts

Leadership Traits We Value

High ownership

Decisiveness

Strong recruiting and talent development capabilities

Accountability

Product judgment

Calm under pressure

Builder mentality

Culture

These are the values that guide how we operate:

All In to Win — Operate with urgency, intensity, and a relentless bar for excellence. 

A Players Only — Only hire, develop, and keep A players. Protect talent density. 

Merchant First — Merchants are why we exist. Every decision measured by merchant impact. 

Entrepreneurial Spirit — Move like a Day One company. Fast, scrappy, hungry. Everyone owns. 

Execution Over Ego — Best ideas win regardless of source. Status and titles do not matter.