[Hiring] Senior Risk Program Manager @Mercury

Role Description

Mercury* is building a complete financial stack for startups, and Risk is how we protect our customers, Mercury, and the broader financial ecosystem. You'll join the Fraud & Disputes Enablement team, a shared-services group that makes our operations teams faster, more consistent, and ready for scrutiny.

This is a generalist program management role for someone who builds programs from zero to one. You'll lead Mercury's Bank Charter Readiness work across Fraud, Disputes, and Risk UX, run the operating reviews and goal tracking that show leaders how Fraud and Disputes are performing, and use data to drive continuous improvement.

You'll work with Risk Operations, Compliance, Risk Product, Engineering, Risk Strategy, and Vendor Management, and you'll show the team how AI can help us work smarter, not harder.

What You'll Do

• Lead Bank Charter Readiness
  • Translate the regulatory expectations of a chartered bank (Reg E, card network rules, and the standards examiners apply) into clear, sequenced work plans owned by the right teams.
  • Build Bank Charter Readiness programs from zero to one: define scope, milestones, dependencies, and risks, and report progress to executives.
  • Keep teams audit-ready every day, with current SOPs, traceable decisions, defensible evidence, and clean documentation, so exam preparation never becomes a scramble.
  • Coordinate responses to regulator, auditor, and partner-bank inquiries with Compliance, Legal, and Operations.
• Lead Goal tracking, and Reporting for Fraud & Disputes
  • Own the cadence and content of Operational Quality Reviews and Monthly CORs Reviews for Fraud and Disputes, from the data pull to the narrative to the follow-up actions.
  • Define and track ops health measures and team goals, including OKRs, so leaders can see what is on track, what is at risk, and why.
  • Build the reporting and dashboards leaders use to make decisions, and set up new reporting from scratch where none exists.
  • Raise risks early, make trade-offs explicit, and drive decisions to closure with partners who don't report to you.
• Use data for continuous improvement
  • Analyze quality, productivity, and compliance data across Fraud, Disputes, and Risk UX to find the patterns behind recurring problems.
  • Turn those findings into durable process, tooling, and reporting improvements instead of one-off fixes.
  • Work with QC, L&D, and Operations leaders to route root causes to the team that can fix them, and confirm the fix worked.
  • Stand up new continuous improvement programs from zero to one and measure their results.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of program management experience in risk, compliance, fraud, disputes, or operations at a bank, fintech, or other regulated financial services company.
• Banking* experience, with working knowledge of how a regulated institution runs, and direct experience working with regulators, examiners, auditors, or sponsor banks (for example exam preparation, findings remediation, or regulatory responses).
• A record of building programs from zero to one, from ambiguous problem to measurable result, with impact beyond your immediate team.
• 2+ years of experience governing BPO or other outsourced operations, with a focus on governance: SLAs, performance and quality oversight, escalations, and regular business reviews.
• Strong understanding of risk operational processes in Fraud and/or Disputes, such as case handling, investigations, chargebacks, or Reg E error resolution.
• Comfort with data: you can define metrics, build or interpret dashboards, and explain what the numbers mean.
• Experience using AI and automation to improve how work gets done, for example synthesizing evidence and documentation, drafting and maintaining SOPs, analyzing QC and vendor data, summarizing incidents, and automating status reporting.

Nice to Haves

• Lean Six Sigma certification (Green Belt or above) or equivalent continuous improvement experience.
• ISO quality credentials (for example ISO 9001 Lead Auditor or Implementer) or a similar quality management background.
• PMI certification (PMP, PgMP) or equivalent.
• Experience with change management frameworks such as Prosci/ADKAR, or ITIL-style incident and problem management.
• Experience in QC program design, workforce management, or learning and development.
• Familiarity with card network dispute rules and platforms.
• Experience with Risk UX, customer-facing risk flows, in a regulated context.
• Experience building and scaling a program in a high-growth environment.

Benefits

• The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options/RSUs), and benefits.
• Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry.
• New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.
• Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:
  • US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $154,200 — $192,800 USD.
  • US employees outside of New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $138,800 — $173,500 USD.
  • Canadian employees (any location): $145,800 — $182,200 CAD.