Senior Engineering Manager, Payments

Patreon•San Francisco, CA

7d•$296,000 - $444,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Patreon is seeking an Engineering Leader to lead its Payments team. This role is critical as it involves the systems that enable creators to earn a living and get paid reliably, and ensure fans have a seamless and trustworthy checkout experience. The Payments team is responsible for Payments Infrastructure (bill processing, compliance, vendor integrations, pay-in and payout methods), Payments Experience (fan-facing checkout, creator-facing payout experience), and Support & Internal tooling. The team comprises 10-12 engineers who collaborate closely with dedicated Product, Design, and Product Marketing leads. As an Engineering Leader, you will partner with product, operations, design, and data to define a vision and roadmap for a high-quality payments product. You will oversee a team of software engineers to execute this vision, driving technical direction, roadmap priorities, and major infrastructure initiatives. You will also champion operational excellence, manage and grow the team, collaborate with other teams for cohesive payment experiences, make build-vs-buy decisions, and represent Payments in cross-functional planning.

Requirements

10+ years of software engineering experience
5+ years of experience managing an engineering team
Direct experience with payments, billing, or financial infrastructure at scale
Understanding of PCI compliance, payment processing/orchestration, chargebacks, and reconciliation, or adjacent regulated-fintech domains
Comfort owning both the "keep the lights on" reliability work and new product bets in the same portfolio
Experience navigating vendor relationships and build-vs-buy decisions for critical infrastructure
Proven track record shipping high-impact, end-to-end product work in complex domains (ideally payments, fintech, or other mission-critical systems)
Comfortable people managing but stepping in and identifying when more hands-on effort is needed to drive the right outcomes
Strong cross-functional partnership skills — you'll work daily with Product, Design, Finance, and Support leads
Deep commitment to building high craft user experiences for both creators and fans
Experience working with experimentation-driven approaches to optimize product surfaces and use of data to inform roadmap decisions
Skilled at building healthy, trusting relationships across Product, Design, business partners, and other engineering teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience with international payments expansion (local payment methods, currency conversion, cross-border compliance)
Background in marketplace or creator-economy businesses

Responsibilities

Set technical direction and roadmap priorities in tight partnership with Product, Design, and PMM leads
Drive execution on major infrastructure initiatives (legacy billing deprecation, payments reliability, local payment methods expansion) alongside day-to-day product delivery
Champion a culture of operational excellence; Improve reliability and efficiency of payments infrastructure, and hold the line on guardrail metrics like Brand Trust and Total Payment Volume.
Manage and grow the team; own hiring, performance, and career development
Collaborate with other teams so payments experiences feel cohesive across other surfaces product areas
Make the call on build-vs-buy and vendor partnership decisions for payment processing, compliance, and payout infrastructure
Represent Payments in cross-functional planning with Finance, Risk, Support, and GTM stakeholders