Co‑founder & Head of Payment Operations Equity‑first — Smart Routing, Agentic Treasury and Future Payments Projects
One‑line vision
To simplify, streamline and enable global commerce via a unified platform that maximises approval rates with AI routing and reimagines treasury using stablecoin rails — we’re building these two ideas now and will explore others as we validate.
Stage and traction
Idea stage; prototypes in progress; bootstrap funding in place. One founder (CEO business lead/developer founder). Seeking a payments co‑founder to co‑lead payments strategy, partner selection, pilots and operational design across both product tracks and future experiments. Founder equity only (vesting terms below). Remote / hybrid; UK preferred.
Smart Routing — project summary
What it is: a production decision layer that routes each payment attempt to the best available PSP or rail in real time to maximise approval probability and net value.
Key deliverables: routing decision API, signed short‑lived Authorization Token, idempotent retry flow, feature pipelines, model monitoring and A/B/holdout experiments to prove approval uplift.
Agentic Treasury — project summary
What it is: an orchestration and risk‑control layer that enables autonomous agents (software agents acting on behalf of merchants, platforms or workflows) to move value across stablecoin rails, custody partners and fiat on/off‑ramps — delivering near‑real‑time, auditable settlement while optimising cost, liquidity and regulatory safety. Agents act programmatically and therefore require strict delegation, limits, governance and full auditability.
Key deliverables for the co‑founder: authorize and execute‑payment API specs with agent token schema and failure modes; custody partner evaluation matrix; agent policy engine and circuit‑breaker design; on‑chain orchestration plan (confirmation policy, batching, gas strategy); reconciliation mapping and exception runbooks; pilot safety checklist (limits, AML gating, insurance, rollback procedures).
What you’ll also own as a co‑founder first 3–6 months
* Shape the payments product portfolio — one‑page strategy, MVP feature lists and unit economics covering Smart Routing, Agentic Treasury and follow‑on ideas as appropriate.
* Validate partners rails and regulatory constraints — map PSPs, acquirers, custody partners, scheme rules and regulator touchpoints; produce a go/no‑go checklist for pilots.
* Design end‑to‑end operational flows — event schemas, routing and retry heuristics, signed short‑lived Authorization Token spec, atomic on‑chain transfer APIs, reconciliation mappings and integration APIs for the developer founder.
* Define ML and data ops requirements — feature pipelines, production inference constraints, model latency and drift monitoring, idempotent retry constraints and A/B/holdout experiment design to prove approval uplift.
* Build compliance controls and auditable evidence — KYC/AML approach, safeguarding model, auditable logs, retention policy, dispute evidence capture and privacy‑compliant data handling.
* Design treasury and custody mechanics — custody partner evaluation (custodial vs non‑custodial), hot/cold wallet ops, gas and fee optimisation, liquidity ladders, and off‑ramp strategy.
* Secure sandboxes and run pilots — negotiate sandbox/pilot agreements, run pilots across both tracks, own incident response and post‑mortems, and capture evidence for audits and investor diligence.
* Measure iterate and scale — define target metrics (example targets: +X% approval uplift vs baseline; Y% reduction in settlement latency; reconciliation accuracy >99.9%), build experiment plans, produce investor‑ready pilot reports and define first ops hires and automation priorities.
Must‑have experience non‑negotiable
* 6–10+ years in payments or fintech operations with senior ownership of processing and settlement.
* Practical experience with card schemes Visa/Mastercard and UK rails FPS BACS and/or SEPA/cross‑border flows.
* Built or run reconciliation exception handling chargeback/dispute workflows and GL handoffs.
* Led PSP acquirer integrations from sandbox to pilot and negotiated commercial terms.
* Hands‑on AML KYC safeguarding and operational evidence for audits or regulator diligence.
* Authored runbooks led on‑call rotations and reduced MTTR in incidents.
* Strong commercial judgement and contract negotiation experience.
* Technical fluency with APIs webhooks and ability to translate ops needs into integration specs.
* Smart Routing specific: production experience with decline‑recovery multi‑PSP routing or retry logic; feature engineering; model monitoring (latency drift); and A/B/holdout experiment design to measure approval uplift.
* Agentic Treasury specific: hands‑on with treasury design stablecoin integrations custody partner evaluation, on‑chain settlement flows, hot/cold wallet management, gas/fee optimisation, liquidity management and off‑ramp integrations.
* Security and audit: familiarity with signed short‑lived tokens, KMS/HSM basics, key rotation and auditable evidence stores for disputes.
Founder terms and logistics
* Equity: Founder‑level equity. Typical vesting: 4 years with a 1‑year cliff. Structure open and negotiable.
* Compensation: Equity‑first only — no stipend.
* Commitment: Flexible to start (part‑time), with option to move full‑time as we validate.
* Location: Remote / Hybrid; UK requirement for partner meetings, ideally Manchester or surrounding areas.
* Legal: Founder status will be formalised on the cap table and via a founder agreement.
* Style: Professional but very down to earth. Friendly and relaxed.
How to reach us founder‑to‑founder
Message via LinkedIn (Easy Apply or direct message) with:
* Which track excites you most (Smart Routing, Agentic Treasury or both) and why.
* A short summary of a payments integration or pilot you led (sandbox → pilot → outcome).
* Confirmation you’re open to founder equity (vesting 4y/1y cliff) and a flexible commitment.