Senior Merchant Risk Specialist

Where We Are Today

Why Now

The Role

We're hiring a Senior Merchant Risk Specialist to help monitor, investigate, and mitigate risk across Reign's growing portfolio of high-risk ecommerce merchants.

This is a senior, hands-on individual contributor role focused on post-underwriting merchant risk management. You will monitor merchant and transaction activity, identify emerging risks, investigate unusual patterns, and recommend appropriate action.

We're specifically looking for someone with direct experience managing risk across high-risk ecommerce merchant portfolios, ideally including DTC, subscription, nutraceutical, digital goods, or similar elevated-risk verticals.

You'll dig into transaction data, merchant performance, fraud and chargeback trends, and other risk signals to identify issues before they become larger problems. You'll independently own investigations, follow the data, and provide clear findings and recommendations to Payments leadership.

You'll personally own complex merchant risk investigations, assess exposure, and recommend appropriate actions rather than primarily overseeing or delegating the work.

Reign operates in a fast-moving, high-risk ecommerce environment where priorities can change quickly. This is not a traditional back-office role where every scenario is covered by an SOP. We're looking for someone who is analytical, curious, comfortable with ambiguity, and capable of independently running with a problem.

What You'll Own

Live Merchant & Portfolio Monitoring

Proactively monitor Reign's portfolio of live, high-risk ecommerce merchants to identify emerging financial, fraud, operational, and compliance risks.

Analyze:

• Transaction volume and velocity

• Processing trends and anomalies

• Chargeback and dispute activity

• Fraud patterns

• Refund activity

• Merchant performance

• Changes in processing behavior

• Other indicators of elevated merchant risk

Identify unusual patterns early and determine when deeper investigation or intervention is warranted.

Risk Investigations

Independently own investigations into potentially concerning merchant or transaction activity.

Dig into transaction data, processing history, merchant behavior, and other available information to understand what is happening and why.

Take investigations from initial signal through resolution, documenting findings and providing clear, data-driven recommendations to Payments leadership.

Apply your understanding of high-risk merchant behavior to distinguish normal processing fluctuations from indicators of potential fraud, financial exposure, or merchant misconduct.

Risk Mitigation & Escalation

Evaluate merchant risk exposure and recommend appropriate actions based on investigation findings.

This may include:

• Reserves or reserve adjustments

• Funding holds

• Processing limits

• Enhanced monitoring

• Fraud controls

• Merchant remediation

• Additional documentation or diligence

• Escalation to processors, acquiring partners, or internal leadership

Balance merchant impact with Reign's financial, operational, and reputational risk.

Chargebacks & Fraud

Monitor portfolio-level and merchant-level chargeback and fraud trends, particularly across high-risk ecommerce verticals.

Identify merchants or transaction patterns showing elevated risk and investigate root causes.

Partner with internal teams to develop mitigation strategies and help reduce preventable losses.

Risk Monitoring & Process Improvement

Help Reign move from reactive risk management toward increasingly proactive and automated monitoring.

Identify opportunities to improve:

• Risk alerts

• Monitoring rules

• Investigation workflows

• Reporting and dashboards

• Escalation processes

• Risk tooling and automation

Partner with Payments leadership, Product, Engineering, and Operations to continuously improve how Reign identifies and manages merchant risk at scale.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Work closely with:

• Payments leadership

• Underwriting

• Client Success

• Product

• Engineering

• Operations

• Compliance

Your primary responsibility is identifying and investigating risk. While direct merchant communication may occasionally be helpful, this is not primarily a client-facing role.

You will provide internal teams with the findings and recommendations they need to manage merchant communication and resolution.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in payments risk, merchant risk, transaction monitoring, fraud, merchant acquiring, or related payments functions

• Direct, hands-on experience monitoring and managing risk across high-risk ecommerce merchant portfolios, including DTC, subscription, nutraceutical, digital goods, or similar elevated-risk merchant verticals

• Experience monitoring live merchant portfolios and transaction-level activity after underwriting and onboarding

• Strong investigative skills with the ability to identify unusual patterns, determine root causes, and recommend appropriate action

• Experience analyzing transaction data, processing trends, chargebacks, disputes, fraud, and other merchant risk indicators

• Strong understanding of merchant acquiring, payment processing, and the payments lifecycle

• Practical experience with risk mitigation controls such as reserves, funding holds, processing limits, enhanced monitoring, or merchant remediation

• Ability to independently own complex investigations from initial signal through findings and recommendations

• Strong analytical judgment, attention to detail, and ability to assess financial exposure

• Proven ability to independently investigate and resolve complex merchant risk issues

• Ability to prioritize and shift quickly as new risks or merchant issues emerge

• Comfortable operating with ambiguity rather than relying exclusively on established processes or SOPs

• Strong written and verbal communication skills

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment

Preferred

• Experience within a PayFac, processor, acquirer, ISO, payment gateway, or embedded payments platform

• Experience monitoring large or complex portfolios of high-risk merchants

• Deep familiarity with elevated-risk DTC verticals, including subscription billing, continuity models, nutraceuticals, or direct-response ecommerce

• Experience building or improving transaction-monitoring rules, alerts, dashboards, or investigation workflows

• Experience using SQL, BI tools, or other data and analytics platforms to investigate merchant risk

• Experience developing or implementing automated risk monitoring and investigation workflows

• Familiarity with AI tools and an interest in using automation to improve risk operations

• Experience in a startup or high-growth payments environment

• Experience providing subject-matter expertise or mentoring junior risk team members without formal management responsibility

Leadership Traits We Value

Culture