Head of Risk Ops

Tilt (formerly Empower)

Head of Risk Operations at Tilt managing non-customer-facing operations including fraud prevention and dispute resolution. Ensuring efficient workflows and regulatory compliance while overseeing a team of analysts.

Posted 6/22/2026full-timeRemote • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $150,000 - $180,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

SQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

End-to-end accountability: Own all non-customer-facing operations across every line of business — fraud prevention, dispute resolution, back-office compliance, and processing work including mail and refund processing — spanning the 30+ workloads currently managed by the team.
Workload ownership: Set the standard for how every back-office workload runs, from the highest-stakes fraud and dispute casework to high-volume processing queues, ensuring each is staffed, measured, and continuously improved.
Operating rhythm: Set goals, SLAs, and quality standards for the function; run the weekly and monthly cadence that keeps the team aligned and surfaces risk early.
Executive voice: Serve as the senior point of contact for Risk operations, translating operational reality across fraud, disputes, and processing into clear tradeoffs for executive leadership and partners.
Regulatory defensibility: Hold the function to a standard that withstands audit and regulatory exams, partnering with Legal and Compliance on FCRA, Reg Z, Reg E, SCRA, and related obligations.
Lead the team (player-coach): Lead and develop a team of Team Leads and subject-matter experts, as well as the frontline investigators and analysts (Sr Risk Investigators, Risk Investigators, Risk Data Analyst). This is a hands-on leadership role, not a pure management one — you stay close to the work as the org flattens and AI absorbs routine volume.
Org design & headcount: Own the structure, staffing model, and capacity planning for the function; make the build-vs-buy-vs-automate calls as volume grows.
Talent: Hire, level, coach, and retain; build career paths and a bench of senior investigators and future team leads.
Performance: Set individual and team performance expectations, run calibration, and hold the bar on quality through the QA rubric and review process.
Automation strategy: Define and drive the roadmap to automate manual review, dispute intake and resolution, monitoring, and reporting; reduce cost-to-serve and cycle time while protecting accuracy.
AI-enabled operations: Partner with the data and AI teams to deploy tooling that triages cases, drafts dispute responses, and flags anomalies, with humans focused on judgment-heavy work.
Tooling & vendors: Own the fraud and dispute tech stack (Alloy, Socure, Persona, LexisNexis, Helix, Centrix, Zendesk, Peach) and the vendor strategy behind it, including utilization, contracts, and consolidation.
Data & measurement: Ensure the function operates on a reliable single source of truth in Databricks; instrument the metrics that prove impact (loss rates, chargeback win rate, dispute cycle time, manual-review rate, QA scores).
Controls: Own the control environment for fraud and disputes; ensure QA, escalation, and documentation standards keep decisions defensible.
Cross-functional partnership: Work with Compliance, Legal, Product, and Engineering to translate regulatory change into operational reality and to close control gaps before they become findings.
Risk appetite: Operationalize the company's risk appetite: Build and tune the systems, thresholds, and workflows that embed Tilt's balance of fraud prevention and fair customer treatment into day-to-day operations, and serve as the escalation point for any gray-areas.

Requirements

What you’ll need

8+ years in fraud, disputes, and overall risk operations, including 3+ years leading teams — ideally including managing managers.
Deep, practical knowledge of consumer protection regulation as it applies to operations: FCRA credit disputes, Reg Z and Reg E transaction disputes, and the back-office obligations (SCRA, bankruptcy, deceased handling, proof of authorization).
A track record of building and scaling operations through process and automation, not just headcount.
Strong command of fraud typologies across card, ACH, and P2P — ATO, identity fraud, payments fraud, abuse, social engineering.
Comfort operating on data: able to set and interpret operational metrics, work with SQL/BI outputs, and hold the team to a single source of truth.
Proven success partnering with Compliance, Legal, Product, and Engineering, and communicating risk and tradeoffs to executives.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Virtual-first teamwork: The Tilt team is collaborating across 14 countries, 12 time zones, and counting. You’ll get started with a WFH office reimbursement.
Competitive pay: We're big on potential, and it's reflected in our competitive compensation packages and generous equity.
Complete support: Find flexible health plans at every premium level, and substantial subsidies that stand up to global standards.
Visibility is yours: You can count on direct exposure to our leadership team — we’re a team where good ideas travel quickly.
Paid global onsites: Magic happens IRL: we gather twice yearly to reconnect over shared meals or kayaking adventures. (We’ve visited Vail, San Diego, and Mexico City, to name a few.)
Impact is recognized: Growth opportunities follow your contributions, not rigid promotion timelines.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

fraud preventiondispute resolutionback-office compliancedata analysisSQLautomationprocess improvementrisk managementperformance measurementcontrols

Soft Skills

leadershipteam developmentcommunicationcross-functional collaborationgoal settingproblem solvingstrategic thinkingcoachingorganizational skillsrisk assessment