Technical Professional Services Lead

About this role

Who we are:

Sardine is the leading agentic risk platform for fighting financial crime. Our integrated solution unifies data across risk teams to help organizations stop fraud in real time, prevent AI-driven attacks, and automate fraud and AML operations. Sardine’s platform is strengthened by one of the fastest-growing fraud consortiums in the market, spanning more than 6 billion profiled devices, 800 million consumers, and 3 million businesses worldwide. Leading companies including FIS, GoDaddy, Intuit, Edward Jones, ZoomInfo, and Checkout.com rely on Sardine to secure and grow trust in their products.

Our culture:

- We have hubs in the Bay Area, NYC, Austin, Toronto, and São Paulo. However, we maintain a remote-first work culture. #WorkFromAnywhere

- We hire talented, self-motivated individuals with extreme ownership and high growth orientation.

- We value performance and not hours worked. We believe you shouldn't have to miss your family dinner, your kid's school play, friends get-together, or doctor's appointments for the sake of adhering to an arbitrary work schedule.

Location:

- Remote - United States. Candidates should be comfortable traveling up to 25% (domestic + international) for customer meetings, onsite implementation support, partner/vendor collaboration, and internal team gatherings.

- From Home / Beach / Mountain / Cafe / Anywhere!

- We are a remote-first company with a globally distributed team. You can find your productive zone and work from there.

About the Role:

We are looking for a Technical Professional Services Lead to build and manage our professional services function. In this role, you will build out a partner delivery network and certified integration partners that can provide a variety of customization services for our global key accounts. This is a unique chance to scale a new function at a fast-growing company. You will be involved in scoping, planning, and delivering custom work, You will be responsible for sourcing, onboarding, and managing a network of specialized contractors who deliver custom statement-of-work (SOW) engagements for our clients. You will own the full lifecycle of these projects—from scoping and contractor selection through delivery and billing—ensuring exceptional quality, on-time execution, and healthy margins.

This is a high-impact, cross-functional role that sits at the intersection of post-sales, operations, and finance. You will work closely with sales, post-sales, product, and engineering to translate client needs into well-defined project scopes and match them with the right contractor talent.

What you’ll be doing:

- Draft and manage statements of work for customizations, white labels, builds for clients, and change orders

- Partner with sales and post-sales teams to scope custom SOW engagements, define deliverables, timelines, and success criteria

- Plan, coordinate, and drive the delivery of large projects for global key accounts with in-house or outsourced contractors and ISVs

- Build a sardineAI preferred/certified Integration partner program.

- Build and maintain a vetted network of specialized contractors and consultants capable of delivering custom fintech implementations - Source, screen, and onboard new contractors; negotiate rates and establish master service agreements (MSAs)

- Match contractor skills and availability to incoming project requirements

- Manage contractor performance, provide feedback, and maintain a quality scorecard system

- Ensure all contractors meet compliance, security, and regulatory requirements relevant to financial services

- Oversee project execution to ensure on-time, on-budget, and on-quality delivery

- Serve as the escalation point for project issues and client concerns

- Conduct project retrospectives and implement continuous improvement practices

- Own the end-to-end billing process for contractor engagements, including time tracking, invoice review, and payment processing

- Manage project budgets, track margins, and report on the profitability of the professional services book of business

- Coordinate with finance and accounting to ensure accurate revenue recognition and contractor payables

- Build and refine operational processes, tools, and templates to scale the professional services function

- Develop and maintain reporting dashboards to track utilization, project health, and financial performance

What you’ll need:

- 10+ years in Professional Services or Product

- 3–5+ years hiring and leading teams in high-growth environments

- Deep domain expertise in payments, fintechs, fraud, AML/KYC, or compliance

- Demonstrated experience in project scoping and financial operations, including the creation of SOWs, MSAs, and managing project profitability

- The ability to manage technical resources is mandatory, must have the technical fluency to oversee frontend, backend, and SQL-heavy projects and drive them to resolution

- Superior critical thinking skills and the ability to source and embed external expertise (contractors/consultants) into a seamless, high-quality delivery engine

- Exceptional executive presentation and communication skills, with a proven ability to command a room

- Ability to travel up to 25%

Compensation: Base pay range of $210,000 -$250,000 + Equity with tremendous upside potential + Attractive benefits

Benefits we offer:

- Generous compensation in cash and equity

- Early exercise for all options, including pre-vested

- Work from anywhere: Remote-first Culture

- Flexible paid time off and Year-end break

- Health insurance, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents - US and Canada specific

- 4% matching in 401k / RRSP - US and Canada specific

- MacBook Pro delivered to your door

- One-time stipend to set up a home office — desk, chair, screen, etc.

- Monthly meal stipend

- Monthly social meet-up stipend

- Annual health and wellness stipend

- Annual…