Strategic Operations Lead - Credit and Lending

About the Role

As a strategic leader, you will be the connective tissue between Engineering, Product, Risk, Compliance, Treasury, and Operations, setting strategy for how these programs run, surfacing tradeoffs that unblock leaders, sequencing the critical path, and ensuring that what ships is audit-ready from day one. Your expertise will be crucial in driving Compliance, Treasury, and Operations readiness alongside product and regulatory milestones.

Mercury is building a proposed nationally chartered bank, and credit and lending are central to this mission. As the company migrates its charge card and term loan products to the Bank's own balance sheet and builds the next generation of lending infrastructure, a seasoned operations leader is needed to hold the full program together.

What You Will Do

• Own the integrated program plan across all active credit and lending workstreams, covering milestones, dependencies, and critical paths across Engineering, Product, Risk, Compliance, Treasury, and Operations.
• Proactively manage sequencing, resourcing tradeoffs, and escalations, identifying issues before they arise and bringing a recommended path forward.
• Ensure Compliance, Treasury, and Operations readiness lands alongside product and regulatory milestones.
• Drive incident learnings back into design, test coverage, and runbooks, improving the underlying system with each issue resolution.
• Keep a single source of truth for status, decisions, risks, and owners, maintaining a living RAID log with clear owners and impact assessments.
• Facilitate structured decision-making by surfacing options and tradeoffs to leaders before problems escalate.
• Build and improve the operating systems that drive credit and lending product decisions, including planning cycles, reviews, decision frameworks, and launch readiness.
• Produce concise, predictable updates calibrated to the audience, synthesizing complex cross-functional information into recommendations that help executives decide and move.
• Function as a trusted thought partner to engineering leads, product managers, and senior leadership, producing documentation of program objectives, architecture decisions, and operational impacts that onboards new team members without requiring a meeting to explain it.
• Identify inefficiencies and eliminate them through automation, AI tooling, or process redesign, leading technical retrospectives and post-mortems to systematize learnings.

What We Are Looking For

• 10+ years of program management or technical program management experience in a high-growth or regulated environment.
• Direct experience in financial services, fintech, or credit infrastructure, with familiarity with compliance, audit, reporting, and risk management obligations.
• Track record of operating at the department or business level, owning programs with multiple concurrent workstreams and cross-functional accountability.
• Proven ability to communicate with and influence executive stakeholders, in writing and in high-stakes meetings, without a senior manager to translate.
• Experience working in a remote or distributed team environment, with the ability to drive collaboration and results across different locations and time zones.
• Strong technical skills, including proficiency in project management tools, data analysis, and software development methodologies.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with the lending tooling ecosystem, such as loan origination, credit risk management, and related technologies.
• Experience working in a banking or financial services environment, with a deep understanding of regulatory requirements and industry standards.
• Certification in program management, such as PMP or Agile, with a strong understanding of lean principles and continuous improvement methodologies.

Benefits and Perks

• Competitive salary and benefits package, with a focus on employee wellness and growth.
• Opportunity to work with a rapidly growing fintech company, driving innovation and change in the financial services industry.
• Collaborative and dynamic work environment, with a team of experienced professionals who are passionate about delivering exceptional results.
• Flexible working arrangements, including remote work options and a flexible schedule to support work-life balance.
• Professional development opportunities, including training, mentorship, and career advancement possibilities.
• Access to cutting-edge technologies and tools, with a focus on innovation and continuous improvement.

• Develop a strong understanding of the fintech industry, including trends, challenges, and opportunities, to demonstrate your expertise and passion for the field.
• Highlight your experience working in regulated environments, with a focus on compliance, risk management, and audit readiness.
• Emphasize your ability to communicate complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders, including executives and product managers.
• Showcase your experience working in cross-functional teams, with a focus on collaboration, influence, and results-driven leadership.
• Prepare to discuss your approach to program management, including your experience with agile methodologies, lean principles, and continuous improvement.
• Be prepared to provide specific examples of your experience working in high-growth environments, with a focus on scalability, adaptability, and strategic leadership.
• Research Mercury's company culture and values, and be prepared to discuss how your skills and experience align with the company's mission and vision.