Payment Operations Lead

About

Swan is Europe’s embedded banking specialist. We empower software companies to embed banking features like accounts, cards, and payments directly into their products, under their own brand.Swan processes over €1.5 billion in monthly transactions for more than 150 companies—like Pennylane, Indy, Agicap, Libeo, and Lucca. Founded in 2019, the company has received growth capital from leading investors such as Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Bpifrance and Eight Roads. Swan is a principal member of Mastercard and a licensed financial institution, regulated by the French banking authority (ACPR).

Our mission

Banking belongs in business software

Many software companies already serve small businesses incredibly well: helping them send invoices, run payroll, manage inventory, and more. They’re on a mission to become the central hub for managing every aspect of business life.

But when it comes to financial workflows, there’s still a gap. Too many critical tasks like managing cash flow, tracking payments, or reconciling accounts happen outside the software, across spreadsheets, email threads, banking portals.

It’s a missed opportunity. Business software shouldn’t just record financial activity — it should run it.

To learn more about us: ; .

Job description

✨ Your team

The Payment Group at Swan leverages industry knowledge, payments expertise,
and general insight to build and operate the banking products and the platform
that power cash collection, cash storage, and money movements for all Swan
financial products.
Ultimately, the group is working toward a future in which all the complexities of
handling money are hidden from Swan's partners and end-users—whether that's
adopting new payment methods, reconciling various entries (technical,
accounting, and cash), integrating with banks and financial partners globally, or
addressing regulatory obligations.

Within this Group, the Payment Operations team oversees our daily payment
operations and ensures compliance with all major regulatory obligations as a
financial institution around three core pillars:
Operational excellence—Because we handle money and perform sensitive
operations, we must deliver the highest quality service to both internal and
external stakeholders
Operational risk management—While we cannot eliminate all operational
risks, we must identify and mitigate them to protect both Swan and our endcustomers' assets
ROI-driven actions and priorities—We must use our resources efficiently and
focus our energy on what matters most: automation, cost efficiency, revenue
opportunities, and risk mitigation

✨ Your mission

As we scale, we are looking for a leader with a process-oriented and automation
mindset to manage the team, increase our efficiency, direct our efforts where
they'll have the greatest company impact, and elevate the quality of everything
we do.

As the Payment Operations Lead, you'll report directly to Swan's VP Product &
Operations - Payment and manage two key functions:

• Payment Operations Run Management—led by Payment Operations
  Supervisors (2 people) who oversee squads of Payment Operations Analysts
  (5 people). The supervisors act as controllers and empower their squads to
  ensure high quality outputs and efficiency. The analysts handle daily payment
  operations (payment flows reconciliation, client safeguarding controls, other
  level 1 controls), provide Level 2 internal support, manage financial provider
  relationships, verify billing, and manage payment incidents until resolution

• Payment Operations Project Management—led by Payment Operations
  Project Managers (2 people) who enhance the Run Management team's
  efficiency through KPI development, process improvement, and
  implementation of automation and AI solutions

✨ Main tasks

As a manager-coach, you will support the team in achieving ambitious goals while
providing subject matter expertise and mentorship.
Your responsibilities will be:

• Lead our Payment Operations team, taking full responsibility for team
  performance, engagement, and development
• Implement and monitor Key Performance Indicators and lead data-driven
  analysis to continuously measure and improve team performance
• Champion automation and AI to streamline operations and decouple team size
  from increasing volumes
• Optimize operational profitability by ensuring team performance aligns with
  budgeted volumes, costs, and control requirements
• Provide technical payment expertise in the development of new products,
  projects and services
• Establish and maintain strategic relationships with key financial providers
  
• Create and maintain an internal leadership network while nurturing
  relationships with key stakeholders to enhance your team's collective
  performance
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and consistently raise the quality
  bar
• Oversee human resource responsibilities, including hiring,
  coaching/mentoring, and supporting team members' career development
  through structured discussions
• Lead initiatives that foster an inclusive and positive team environment

Preferred experience

✨ You’re a great match if:

• 7+ years of experience in startups, consulting, operations, logistics, or other
  relevant fields
• Master or Bachelor's degree in a relevant field
• Direct experience leading high-performing operational teams
• Process-oriented and automation/AI mindset, ability to translate data findings
  into operations strategy
• Ability to tackle complex challenges using logic, data analysis, and critical
  thinking to identify root causes, while developing effective solutions and
  mitigation measures
• Strong analytical and decision-making abilities with excellent judgement
• Full proficiency in English and French
• A good understanding of the Payments ecosystem is a strong plus
• Experience with SQL is a plus, or comfortable learning and using new software
  tools
  

• Our ideal teammate: Empathetic. Skilled. Frank. We love to challenge each other, and we leave our egos at the door.

It’s okay if you don’t tick all the boxes — don’t let imposter syndrome prevent you from applying! 🙌 

Swan is committed to providing a caring work environment for all employees, regardless of age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, or belief.

When it comes to recruitment, we’re interested in your work experience, skills, and overall personality. Because diversity makes the workplace stronger and is necessary for Swan’s success, we are intensifying efforts to incorporate concrete actions to help us improve in this area.

About Swan

✨ Perks of being a Swanee:

• Meal Vouchers: We provide a Swile card to cover your meals on work days.
• Holidays : 25 days + RTT 🏝️
• Transport: Monthly mobility package for employees. In accordance with the company agreement for sustainable mobilities, you can now use your mobility package to pay for alternative commuting modes. 🚇
• Health insurance (mutuelle) : Alan . This is Swan's health and welfare insurance. 🚑
• Sports : Thanks to our partnership with Classpass and Gymlib , you can enjoy advantageous discounts on subscriptions. They offer a wide range of sports activities as well as wellness activities. The offers are valid in several European cities, as well as online. 🏋
• Hybrid remote policy : We offer the possibility of working from home for 2 days per week. 🏡
• Offsite : Once a year we gather to reconnect, deep-dive into big topics, and relax. 🤝
• This isn’t a perk, it should be the rule, but diversity and inclusion are important at Swan. We’re working hard to get better every day.

✨ Our values:

Swan’s core values guide our actions daily. Individually, they may seem obvious, but together, they form a unique culture.

Simplicity: Leonardo Da Vinci said: “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” If something's convoluted or confusing, we work extra hard to break it down. - Making complex things simple is what we do.

Long Term : We always play the long game, whether it's to support our partners in their growth journey, or make tangible commitments to climate action.

Excellence : We are a team of experts who consistently go all out to create pixel-perfect banking services and exceed our partners' expectations— whatever it takes.

Be Human : We believe in the power of kindness and the importance of acting with integrity. But embracing our humanity extends beyond interpersonal interactions, it means caring about greater issues that affect our planet.

You can find out more about our culture .

Recruitment process

• A 30-min video call with our Talent Acquisition Manager, to get to know you, understand your career expectations and answer your questions
• Hiring Manager Interview with our VP Product & Payment Operations, Julien
• Case study to present to your N+2
• HR Interview to test managerial skills