Head of Payment Optimization (Product)

Neon • San Francisco, CA

8d

About The Position

About Neon Neon is a global payments and e-commerce platform designed to help game publishers earn more money and independence from app stores. We believe commerce should be open and transparent: clear decisions, actionable insights, and aligned incentives. Founded by payments, fintech and gaming veterans, Neon focuses on product and partnership excellence: we share the playbook, co-pilot decisions, and abstract away risk and complexity for our customers. We’re replacing old-school, black-box relics with clear, modern, and developer-centric infrastructure. As an early team member, you’ll have the opportunity to shape and scale Neon’s product and culture, making a direct impact on our growth and success. You’ll join a collaborative, diverse team from world-class companies like Apple, Affirm, Unity, and Visa, backed by renowned VC's including Thrive, a16z, Griffin Gaming, Ribbit, and Renegade. If you want to build disruptive technology, challenge the status quo, and help game creators thrive on their own terms, read on. The Role We’re looking for a product leader to own Neon Pay’s global payment optimization and risk strategy. You’ll drive how we improve transaction performance — balancing fraud prevention, authorization success, and customer experience. This is a hands-on, senior product role that combines data-driven experimentation, system design, and operational excellence. You’ll collaborate with Engineering, Data Science, and Partnerships to enhance payment routing, fraud detection, and performance optimization globally.

Requirements

• 8–10 years’ experience in product management, payments optimization, or risk/fraud domains.
• Deep understanding of payment lifecycle, routing logic, and acquirer performance management.
• Analytical and technically fluent; able to translate data into actionable system changes.
• Experience integrating or managing external fraud and payment solutions.
• Strong collaboration and stakeholder management across technical and operational teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Payment Optimization product roadmap — spanning fraud prevention, routing, and acquirer performance.
• Design logic to detect risk vectors at checkout and apply dynamic friction to mitigate fraud before authorization.
• Collaborate with Data Science and Engineering to train and deploy models that improve authorization rates and detect fraud patterns.
• Oversee the systems and processes supporting dispute handling, fraud investigation, and performance monitoring.
• Partner with acquirers, PSPs, and fraud vendors to enhance performance and reliability.
• Define and track KPIs across success rates, fraud losses, and cost efficiency.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed