We are seeking a highly experienced Tech Lead – Credit Card Payment Engineering to architect, build, and scale our card payment processing platform. This leader will serve as the technical authority across the full card payments ecosystem, with deep expertise in the four-party (open-loop) and three-party (closed-loop) models, and hands-on experience across authorization, clearing, settlement, reconciliation, and compliance. This role goes beyond transaction processing — it requires ownership of financial integrity systems, including automated reconciliation frameworks, reporting pipelines, monitoring thresholds, and operational escalation paths to ensure payment accuracy, reliability, and audit readiness at scale.
ABOUT US
Xsolla is a global commerce company with robust tools and services to help developers solve the inherent challenges of the video game industry. From indie to AAA, companies partner with Xsolla to help them fund, distribute, market, and monetize their games. Grounded in the belief in the future of video games, Xsolla is resolute in the mission to bring opportunities together, and continually make new resources available to creators. Headquartered and incorporated in Los Angeles, California, Xsolla operates as the merchant of record and has helped over 1,500+ game developers to reach more players and grow their businesses around the world. With more paths to profits and ways to win, developers have all the things needed to enjoy the game.
For more information, visit xsolla.com.
Responsibilities:
Architect and lead the implementation of scalable, fault-tolerant card payment processing systems.
Design systems aligned with: Four-party model (Visa/Mastercard), Three-party model (Amex/Discover)
Own the full transaction lifecycle: Real-time authorization, Batch clearing, and Settlement and fund movements
Implement resilient routing strategies, redundancy, and failover mechanisms.
Architect and maintain automated reconciliation frameworks that: Match authorization, clearing, and settlement records. Reconcile internal ledgers with acquirer and network reports. Detect mismatches, duplicates, and missing transactions
Design systems to ensure ledger consistency and idempotency
Build safeguards to prevent revenue leakage
Implement transaction state tracking across the entire lifecycle
Ensure systems are audit-ready and compliant with financial controls
Design and maintain payment reporting systems including: Authorization rate reports, Settlement reconciliation reports, Fee and interchange breakdown reports, Chargeback and dispute metrics
Implement threshold-based alerting systems, including: Authorization rate drops, Abnormal decline patterns, Settlement mismatches, Volume anomalies, and Chargeback ratio spikes
Define and implement escalation paths for: Acquirer outages, Network disruptions, Fraud spikes, and Reconciliation failures
Partner with Finance and Risk to define monitoring thresholds and response playbooks.
Ensure compliance with: PCI DSS, Card network operating regulations, Data encryption and tokenization standards
Design secure card vaulting and tokenization solutions.
Integrate fraud detection systems and risk scoring engines.
Support 3D Secure and SCA frameworks.
Collaborate on chargeback prevention and representation workflows.
Lead and mentor a team of payment engineers.
Establish best practices for: Reliability engineering, Transaction idempotency, Distributed systems design, Observability and monitoring, and Incident response
Drive documentation standards for payment flows and financial controls.
Partner cross-functionally with Product, Finance, Risk, and Compliance.
Act as the internal SME for card payments and guide engineering decisions based on domain knowledge.
Qualifications & Skills:
8+ years of software engineering experience.
3+ years designing or operating card payment processing systems at scale.
Proven hands-on experience with: Authorization, clearing, and settlement flows, Four-party and three-party models, Interchange and fee structures, and Chargeback lifecycle
Experience building or maintaining: Automated reconciliation systems, Payment ledgers, Financial reporting pipelines, Alerting and threshold monitoring systems
Strong understanding of PCI DSS and payment security standards.