Payments Systems Specialist

In this role you will own the end-to-end card payments ecosystem across two retail brands, ensuring secure, compliant, high-availability payment services at scale. You will lead a small technical team and work with cross-functional partners to deliver strategic payment initiatives. This role focuses on optimizing payment terminals, switching, gateways, loyalty integrations, and mobile payments to support business goals. You will act as the organization’s payments SME, driving improvements and supplier management in a dynamic retail environment.

• Own the end-to-end payment card processing environment across two brands and ~800 locations
• Ensure high availability, resilience, performance, and security of payment services
• Manage payment acceptance technologies including terminals, switching hosts, gateways, acquiring integrations, loyalty and mobile apps
• Oversee strategic supplier relationships for network services, terminal provisioning/maintenance, switching services, and support
• Define, monitor, and govern SLAs, KPIs, and contractual obligations; lead supplier performance reviews and improvements
• Manage escalations and ensure timely incident resolution
• Provide third-line technical support and expert-level troubleshooting for payment and loyalty systems
• Maintain operational procedures, technical documentation, and support models; ensure PCI DSS and P2PE compliance
• Lead delivery of payment-related projects and strategic initiatives; coordinate stakeholders to deliver outcomes
• Translate business requirements into technical specs and define solution architectures; ensure security, compliance, and scalability
• Own and manage two customer-facing mobile applications from a payment perspective; manage loyalty platform integrations
• Drive security enhancements and ongoing management of P2PE across the estate

• Significant experience managing enterprise-scale payment processing environments
• Strong understanding of card payment ecosystems (acquirers, gateways, card schemes, switching, POS and terminals)
• Experience managing third-party service providers and technology vendors
• Proven leadership experience managing technical teams
• Track record delivering technology and business change projects
• Experience translating business requirements into technical solutions
• Experience managing mobile applications and customer-facing digital platforms
• Strong incident management and problem-solving capabilities
• Experience operating within PCI DSS-regulated environments

• leadership
• stakeholder management
• problem-solving
• PCI DSS
• P2PE
• payment terminals