Head of Payments & Identity

We are looking for a Head of Payments & Identity to build and lead an engineering domain responsible for the complete user and money lifecycle: from customer identification and fraud prevention to deposits, withdrawals and accurate financial accounting in the Core Ledger. You will transform the current payment capability into a structured organisation across Payments, KYC/Identity, Anti-Fraud and Core Ledger, leading approximately 30 engineers and engineering leaders. This role requires a strong engineering leader who can build teams and engineering culture, shape architecture and delivery, and balance customer conversion with security, regulatory compliance and financial integrity. Responsibilities - Build and scale the engineering domain across Payments, KYC/Identity, Anti-Fraud and Core Ledger - Lead approximately 30 engineers and engineering leaders, defining the organisational structure, team boundaries, leadership model and areas of ownership - Define the domain strategy, target architecture and execution roadmap in partnership with Product, Finance, Compliance, Risk and Operations - Ensure seamless and reliable interaction across the user and money lifecycle: KYC data supports fraud decisions, fraud controls protect payment flows, and payment events create accurate and idempotent records in the Core Ledger - Improve the speed, quality and predictability of integrations with payment providers, KYC/AML vendors and other external partners, particularly across regions with inconsistent APIs and complex operational requirements - Ensure the resilience, observability and security of external integrations, including fallback scenarios, incident response and integration quality standards - Balance onboarding and payment conversion with Anti-Fraud, AML, data protection and transaction traceability requirements - Provide Finance, Compliance, Risk and Operations with reliable data and tools for reconciliation, investigations, exception handling and reporting - Establish domain-wide engineering standards covering architecture, quality, secure development, observability and continuous improvement - Drive the modernisation of business-critical systems and the evolution toward a central and reliable Ledger architecture - Define and track domain-level metrics covering conversion, reliability, processing speed, fraud losses, reconciliation accuracy, delivery performance and cost efficiency Requirements - Proven experience leading a sizeable engineering organisation or multiple cross-functional teams, ideally with approximately 30 or more people, including engineering managers, team leads or other senior technical leaders - Track record of building or significantly scaling an engineering function, domain or complex platform rather than only maintaining an established structure - Strong systems thinking and the ability to connect customer journeys, product flows, architecture, operational processes, risk controls and financial outcomes - Experience leading complex integrations and business-critical systems where correctness, availability, security and auditability are essential - Strong engineering and architectural foundation, with the ability to challenge technical decisions, guide technical leaders and identify systemic risks - Experience improving delivery predictability, engineering quality and technical standards across multiple teams - Ability to align Product, Finance, Compliance, Risk, Operations and external providers, resolving competing priorities at a senior leadership level - Ukrainian native speaker - Fluent English and strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders Would be a plus - Experience in payments, fintech, banking, brokerage, crypto, wallets, marketplaces or another high-volume transactional product - Experience integrating multiple regional PSPs or financial providers, particularly in markets where integrations are less standardised than Stripe or PayPal - Experience with KYC/identity, AML, transaction monitoring, payment Anti-Fraud, reconciliation or Ledger systems - Experience migrating fragmented or legacy accounting components to a central Ledger or another financial source of truth - Experience building internal tools and workflows for Finance, Compliance, Risk or operational back-office teams We offer - 20 paid vacation days per year - 10 paid sick leave days per year - Public holidays as per the company's approved Public holiday list - Medical insurance - Opportunity to work remotely - Professional education budget - Language learning budget - Wellness budget (gym membership, sports gear and related expenses)