Senior Director of Product, Payments Acceptance

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world, helping business owners operate, increase sales, engage customers, and keep employees happy.

Toast is scaling fast and Payments is right at the center of that growth. We process over $200B annually on behalf of our customers. As we move into the next phase, the complexity of our payments platform, customer segments, and product surface area is increasing materially. We are looking for a leader who can lead the Payments Acceptance product organization. 

As Senior Director of Product, Payments Acceptance, you will be responsible for defining the strategy, platform architecture direction, and execution roadmap for Toast's payments acceptance stack. You will lead a high-performing product organization and partner deeply with engineering to deliver a fast, reliable, compliant, and cost-efficient platform powering Toast's core business.

This role is about platform thinking, strong people leadership, and strategic judgment in a high-stakes domain. You'll own the payments acceptance surface — from card-present to card-not-present, orchestration, optimization, and alternate payment experiences including agentic commerce. This is a rare opportunity to shape the future of payments at industry-leading scale.

This is a U.S. based remote role, partnering closely with engineering and product teams across the U.S., Ireland, and India.

A day in the life (Responsibilities) 

• Set Platform Strategy: Own the long-term vision for Toast's payment acceptance capabilities, drive the platform architecture direction required to support Toast's scale, reliability needs, and innovation roadmap.
• Drive Platform Modernization & Cost Optimization: Lead the multi-year roadmap for Toast's core payments platform. Own cost optimization, expanding payment rails and delivering world-class availability and reliability.
• Drive High-Impact Execution: Translate strategy into clear priorities and measurable outcomes for a multi-disciplinary, multi-region product and engineering organization. Anticipate and resolve strategic issues that impact delivery, stability, or regulatory posture.
• Shape the Future of Agentic Payments: Drive Toast's point of view on how autonomous agents will initiate, authorize, and complete payments on behalf of consumers and position Toast's platform to enable these experiences.
• Lead Through Influence: Champion cross-functional delivery across Product, Engineering, Design, Legal/Compliance, Hardware, Commerce, Risk, Finance, and Operations. Represent Payments Acceptance as a key leader in Toast's executive forums and vendor partner ecosystem.
• Build and Develop a World-Class Team: Hire, coach, and develop a world-class team of Product Managers across multiple regions. You lead a high-leverage team that punches well above its weight through engineering partnerships. Cultivate an operating model grounded in ownership, accountability, clarity, and exceptional execution.

What you'll need to thrive (Requirements)

Must-Have

• Payments Acquiring Depth: 15+ years of progressive Product Management experience, with deep expertise in payment acquiring and processing within a large-scale merchant, PSP, or fintech environment.
• Full-Stack Acceptance Knowledge: Extensive experience across card-present and card-not-present acceptance -  including EMV, contactless, routing, tokenization, and network rules.
• Platform Leadership at Scale: Proven ability to define and execute platform strategy, including modernization, orchestration, and cost optimization at high transaction volumes.
• People Leadership: Demonstrated success building, mentoring, and scaling high-performing product teams across geographic locations. Experience managing managers preferred.
• Regulatory Fluency: Strong understanding of U.S. payments regulations and network requirements (PCI, EMVCo, card brand rules).
• Executive Communication: Exceptional cross-functional influence and stakeholder management at the VP/C-suite level.

Strong Plus

• Fintech Builder Background: Experience at a high-growth payments or commerce platform where you built payments products from the ground up.
• Agentic Commerce Exposure: Curiosity and point of view on how autonomous agents will reshape payment acceptance — where consumers' AI agents initiate and complete purchases on their behalf.
• Technical Fluency: Track record of bridging business strategy and complex engineering domains — can go deep with architects and come back up to tell the story to executives.
• MS, MTech, or MBA

What this role is NOT

• This is not a "keep the lights on" role. You'll be expected to transform, not just maintain.
• This is not siloed. You'll be deeply embedded across Toast's product and business ecosystem.

AI at Toast

At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it’s a core part of our culture.

Our Total Rewards Philosophy

We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters’ changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.

The base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, our total rewards components include cash compensation (overtime, bonus/commissions if eligible), equity, and benefits. You can learn more about how we align pay with local labor markets in our Geographic Pay Zone Philosophy.

Zone A$278,000—$445,000 USDZone B$242,000—$387,000 USDZone C$218,000—$349,000 USD

How Toast Uses AI in its Hiring Process

Throughout the hiring process, our goal is to get to know you. We use AI tools to support our recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking, summarization, and documentation of interviews to ensure they can be fully focused on your conversation. All hiring decisions are made by people. To learn more: https://careers.toasttab.com/ai-in-hiring

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is Baked into our Recipe for Success

At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive. The restaurant industry is one of the most diverse, and we embrace that diversity with authenticity, inclusivity, respect, and humility. By embedding these principles into our culture and design, we create equitable opportunities for all and raise the bar in delivering exceptional experiences.

We Thrive Together

We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the restaurant community. To learn more about how we work globally and regionally, check out: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast.

Apply today!

Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process. As part of this commitment, we strive to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to enable them to access the hiring process. If you need an accommodation to access the job application or interview process, please contact candidateaccommodations@toasttab.com.

------

For roles in the United States, it is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.