Head of Disputes

Job description

HEAD OF DISPUTES At Cardless, we're building a credit card and loyalty platform that consumer businesses use to engage their customers. We've launched over a dozen credit card programs, including for Coinbase, Bilt, and Qatar Airways. We help businesses bring imaginative card programs to life, and have pioneered technology to embed credit card features natively into their products. We value curiosity, humility, and intensity — we move fast and take outsized ownership. This is a place where a motivated, resourceful individual can have an enormous impact on our trajectory. We're headquartered in San Francisco, and have raised about $150M in equity funding from top venture capital firms including Spark Capital, American Express, Activant Capital, and more. THE JOB We're looking for an experienced disputes professional to own our disputes function end-to-end. Right now, disputes are handled by an external BPO — your job is to take ownership of that operation, drive quality and outcomes, and build the in-house capability that scales with us as we grow. You'll report directly to the COO and work closely with Fraud, Compliance, Engineering, and our banking partners to make sure we're handling disputes accurately, efficiently, and in line with Reg E, Reg Z, and network rules. This is a heads-down, build-it-yourself role today — with a clear path to building and leading a team as volume grows. EXAMPLE PROJECTS Owning BPO disputes operations: You audit BPO dispute handling across our card programs, identify where outcomes are off or timelines are slipping, and implement the oversight framework that fixes it — chargeback ratios, provisional credit accuracy, response SLAs. Leveling up the playbook: We have a disputes function that works — but we're scaling to millions of users and it needs to grow with us. You'll audit what exists, identify the gaps, and harden our policies, decision trees, and SOPs so they hold up at 10x volume across fraud claims, merchant disputes, and billing errors. Building automation: Manual disputes workflows don't scale. You'll work with Engineering to identify where automation can reduce handling time, improve consistency, and lower cost — whether that's automated evidence gathering, decisioning logic, or status communications to cardholders. Working a complex dispute end-to-end: A high-value chargeback comes in with a complicated fact pattern — possible friendly fraud, a merchant with a poor response rate, and a tight Visa deadline. You own it: gather the evidence, make the call, respond to the network, and document the outcome. Partnering with Engineering on disputes tooling: Our disputes workflow lives across multiple systems. You identify the gaps, work with Engineering to close them, and help build the internal tooling that makes the function faster and more accurate. Driving down chargeback rates: You dig into dispute data across programs, find the patterns driving volume — a merchant category, a card feature, a cardholder cohort — and partner with Fraud and Product to address root causes before they become a compliance issue. BEFORE YOU APPLY A few things worth knowing: This is a team of one to start. You won't have direct reports on day one. You'll be doing the work yourself — auditing the BPO, handling complex cases, writing policy — while building toward a team over time. If you're looking to step into a management role from day one, this isn't that yet. We work in the office 5 days a week. We know that's a dealbreaker for some people, and that's okay. Disputes at a multi-program fintech are genuinely complex. You'll be working across multiple card programs with different partner requirements, bank relationships, and network rules simultaneously. There's no clean playbook — you'll be writing it. You'll work closely with the COO. That means high visibility and real influence, but also high expectations. You'll need to be comfortable bringing structure to ambiguous situations and communicating clearly with senior stakeholders. If that sounds like a lot, it is. If it sounds like exactly what you've been looking for, keep reading. WHY THIS ROLE IS COOL You'll own a function, not a queue. Disputes is a domain that touches compliance, fraud, product, and customer experience — and you'll be the person who defines how Cardless does it at scale. That kind of end-to-end ownership is rare. You'll work across all three major networks. Visa, Mastercard, and Amex each have their own dispute rules, tools, and timelines. Managing all three simultaneously — across multiple card programs — is the kind of complexity that makes you genuinely better at this craft. You'll be on the frontier of AI in financial services. Disputes is one of the highest-leverage places to apply AI and automation in fintech right now — evidence gathering, decisioning logic, cardholder communications. You'll be building those systems, not watching someone else do it. Direct line to leadership. You'll report to the COO and have a real voice in decisions that shape the business — chargeback liability, provisional credit policy, fraud thresholds. Your expertise will drive those calls, not just inform them. The work requires real judgment. Network rules, regulatory timelines, fraud pattern analysis, evidence evaluation — good disputes work isn't rote. It rewards people who think carefully and know their craft deeply. RESPONSIBILITIES - Own the disputes function end-to-end — strategy, policy, BPO oversight, and complex case resolution - Manage and audit our BPO disputes operation, driving quality, accuracy, and SLA compliance across programs - Build the internal disputes playbook: policies, SOPs, decision trees, and escalation paths - Handle complex and high-value disputes directly — fraud claims, merchant chargebacks, billing errors — in compliance with Reg E, Reg Z, and Visa/Mastercard network rules - Ensure full compliance with Reg E, Reg Z, and Visa/Mastercard dispute rules — owning adherence end-to-end across timelines, provisional credit, and required cardholder communications - Partner with Fraud, Compliance, and Engineering to address root causes of dispute volume, improve tooling, and build automation that reduces manual handling at scale - Monitor chargeback ratios and dispute metrics across programs and escalate trends to leadership - Work with our sponsor bank and card networks on dispute-related requirements and escalations - Hire and develop an in-house disputes team as volume and complexity grow REQUIREMENTS - 5+ years of experience in credit card disputes, chargebacks, or a closely related function - Deep working knowledge of Reg E, Reg Z, and dispute rules, tools, and timelines across all three major card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) — and experience owning compliance adherence, not just awareness of the rules - Experience overseeing or partnering with BPO operations on disputes or servicing - Strong analytical skills — you can pull dispute data, identify patterns, and turn them into actionable recommendations - Comfortable working cross-functionally with Compliance, Fraud, Engineering, and external banking partners - Clear, precise written communication — you can write a dispute policy as clearly as you can write an escalation summary - Experience at a card issuer, fintech, or bank is strongly preferred - San Francisco-based and in-office 5 days a week COMPENSATION This role has an annual starting salary range of $140,000–$190,000 + equity + benefits. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skills, experience, and specific work location. BENEFITS We're headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with a beautiful office in the Mission District. We're proud to offer our team excellent benefits: 💸 Meaningful startup equity 🏥 100% health, vision & dental primary coverage ➕ 75% health, vision & dental dependent coverage 🍱 Catered lunches 🚎 $250/month commuter benefit 👶 Parental leave ✈️ Team building events & happy hours 🌴 Flexible PTO with a minimum of 15 days off per year 🖥️ Apple equipment 💸 401k plan LOCATION We're headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with a beautiful office in the Mission District (near Dolores Park). This role is in-office 5 days a week.