Sr. Director of Software Engineering - Payment Network

• Leads multiple technology and process implementations across departments to achieve firmwide technology objectives
• Drive engineering design of core payment network capabilities through POC and initial implementations spanning the payment network, interfaces, data flows from merchant through both our issuing platforms.
• Define and enforce architectural best practices, standards, and guidelines across multiple lines of business ensuring security, scalability, and regulatory compliance.
• Own the Architect of our payment network processing, including transaction authorizations, tokenization, dispute management, Fraud/Risk processing, Identity, settlement and more
• Directly manages multiple areas with strategic transactional focus
• Sets and scales multi-department strategy for agentic AI-enabled engineering and SDLC/TLM automation (using enterprise-authorized tools within the work environment) to drive firmwide objectives (speed, scalability, reliability, and cost-to-serve), including portfolio-level standards for AI-orchestrated delivery workflows, release governance, automated test modernization, resilience engineering, and incident response acceleration; establishes guardrails for validation, security, resiliency, traceability, and reuse.
• Applies knowledge of tools within the Software Development Life Cycle toolchain, including enterprise-authorized AI-assisted development and automation capabilities, to drive cross-domain reuse and measurable capacity unlock outcomes across departments.
• Provides leadership and high-level direction to teams while frequently overseeing employee populations across multiple platforms, divisions, and lines of business
• Acts as the primary interface with senior leaders, stakeholders, and executives, driving consensus across competing objectives
• Manages multiple stakeholders, complex projects, and large cross-product collaborations
• Influences peer leaders and senior stakeholders across the business, product, and technology teams

• Formal training or certification on software engineering concepts and 10+ years applied experience. In addition, 5+ years of experience leading 
• Deep expertise in end-to-end payment network processes: authorizations, tokenization, VAS, disputes, clearing, settlement, and fraud management across merchant, acquirers, and issuers
• Experience working with Business, Legal and Compliance to ensure the systems meet regulatory, compliance and business goals.
• Track-record of working with abstract emerging technologies / trends (e.g., agentic payments, AI/ML fraud detection, blockchain), shaping design and innovation.
• Experience developing or leading large or cross-functional teams of technologists
• Demonstrated prior experience influencing across highly matrixed, complex organizations and delivering value at scale
• Experience leading multi-organization adoption of agentic AI-enabled engineering operating models (using enterprise-authorized tools within the work environment), including defining governance (human-in-the-loop decisioning, quality gates), measurement frameworks, and secure handling of sensitive inputs/outputs across teams.
• Deep understanding of responsible AI risk, controls, and resiliency/security expectations at scale, with demonstrated ability to advise senior leaders on safe adoption, portfolio governance, and reuse-first strategies.
• Experience leading complex projects supporting system design, testing, and operational stability
• Experience with hiring, developing, and recognizing talent
• Extensive practical cloud native experience

Preferred qualifications, skills, and capabilities

• Recognized thought leader and innovator with demonstrated industry eminence
• Experience at  payment network, acquirer or related industry / company helpful.