Operational Excellence Manager - Merchant Operations

At Adyen, we create an environment with opportunities for our people to succeed, backed by the culture and support to ensure they are enabled to truly own their careers. We are motivated individuals who tackle unique technical challenges at scale and solve them as a team. Together, we deliver innovative and ethical solutions that help businesses achieve their ambitions faster.

About the role

The Merchant Operations (MOps) Excellence team is the backbone of our first-line defense (CDD, Credit Risk, Fraud, AML). As our product suite and global regulations evolve, the compliant journey becomes increasingly complex.

We are not looking for a traditional Project Manager to simply track deadlines. We are looking for an Excellence Manager who will take ongoing ownership of the operational health and readiness of our business. You won't just deliver a project and move on; you will ensure that our operations are aligned, visible, and prepared for every launch, migration, and strategic shift.

In this role, you are the guardian of operational health. You will sit at the intersection of Product, Compliance and Merchant Ops, ensuring that every change, new launch or migration isn't just delivered, but is successfully integrated into our ecosystem. You will move beyond tracking deadlines to exercising high-level judgment, assessing business impact, identifying structural bottlenecks, and ensuring our first-line teams have the visibility and confidence to scale. If you are a structured, business-minded problem solver who thrives in ambiguity, this is your opportunity to drive true operational excellence.

What you’ll do

• Move beyond the what to the how. Analyze how new products or regulatory changes affect MOps workflows and ensure the business is ready for scale.
• Own launch and migration readiness by driving the Go/No-Go process and assessing whether the business is prepared to support launches with end-to-end visibility across stakeholders.
• Identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in current operational workflows and propose scalable solutions, aligning with the Build for Scale principle.
• Own the transition from project to business as usual, ensuring first-line teams have the documentation, logic, and confidence to execute.
• Act as the primary connector between Product, Compliance, and Merchant Operations, ensuring product roadmaps are aligned with operational capacity and tool-stack capabilities.
• Support the preparation and execution of strategic leadership meetings by contributing to agenda development, facilitating discussions, and ensuring clear takeaways, owners, and timelines are established.
• Navigate ambiguous situations where there is no playbook, using judgment to prioritize what matters for the business over what is simply next on a list.

Who you are

• You thrive in the real work of migrations and coordination. You prefer tangible results and operational stability over theoretical project plans.
• You take full accountability for the long-term success of an integration, not just the delivery date. You don't wait for instructions; you identify gaps and close them.
• You can navigate a complex, fast-paced environment and communicate clearly with both technical product teams and operational leads.
• You can create structure where it doesn't exist and are not afraid to make calls when faced with complex, cross-functional challenges.
• You are highly organized, with a strong ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and prioritize effectively.
• You have 4+ years of experience in operations, project management, product launches, or enablement, ideally within AML, Scheme Ops, CDD, Fraud, or Credit Risk.

This role is based out of our Amsterdam office. We are an office-first company and value in-person collaboration; we do not offer remote-only roles.