Payment Operations Manager

Mudflap•Palo Alto, CA

3d•$90,000 - $137,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Mudflap is hiring a Payment Operations Manager to lead payment operations for a fintech platform serving small trucking businesses. The role oversees payment disputes and escalations, payment flexibility, and collections for genuinely delinquent accounts. The manager will establish standards, metrics, and playbooks to make operations consistent, effective, and scalable. This role is hybrid, balancing in-office collaboration with remote work. Mudflap is prioritizing candidates in the San Francisco Bay Area and will also consider candidates in Austin, Texas; offices are located in Palo Alto and Austin. The manager will lead and develop a small team, with the opportunity to grow the function, and collaborate closely with Customer Success, Risk/Underwriting, Compliance, and Product.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience in payment operations, collections, or credit risk, ideally in B2B or commercial unsecured credit or a lending-adjacent business.
Experience managing teams, including hiring, coaching, and performance management.
Strong understanding of performance metrics, including delinquency aging and recovery rates, and the ability to balance customer flexibility against credit loss.
High customer empathy and the judgment and discipline to make firm decisions when warranted by the numbers.
Working knowledge of debt collection compliance, including the FDCPA and state equivalents, and experience partnering with Legal or Compliance on policy development.
A builder's mindset and ability to create structure, processes, and tooling where they do not already exist.
Proficiency using data and AI tools to identify patterns, inform decisions, and shape policies at scale.

Nice To Haves

Experience in trucking, fleet, freight, or small-business lending environments where irregular income is common and is not necessarily an indicator of risk.

Responsibilities

Manage disputes and escalations involving payments, transactions, and accounts; establish clear SLAs and handoffs with Customer Success.
Develop and own the payment flexibility strategy, including decision criteria and processes for tracking and enforcing flexibility.
Oversee collections and triage accounts to distinguish genuine financial hardship from fraud or other risk flags.
Define and track performance metrics, including resolution time, recovery rate, repeat-exception rate, and cost-to-serve, and report them regularly.
Improve processes and tooling, including evaluating and optimizing existing automation.
Lead and develop a small team and support the potential growth of the function.
Partner with Customer Success on case handoffs, SLAs, and customer experience during payment issues.
Collaborate with Risk/Underwriting on credit decisions, fraud triage, and the intersection of payment flexibility policies and lending risk.
Work with Compliance on debt collection laws, documentation standards, and policy reviews before implementation.
Partner with Product to identify recurring pain points and turn them into product improvement opportunities.