Trading Operations Lead

Mercury is building a complete finance stack for startups. We work hard to create the easiest and safest banking* experience possible to simplify entrepreneurs’ and business owners’ financial lives. Underneath all our products is a massive web of partners that users don’t see, requiring significant product and process investment. That’s where the Financial Partnership Operations team comes in. We work to maintain our external relationships and streamline our collective workflows to keep customers, partners, and Mercury employees happy.

We’re looking for a Trading Operations Lead to own and scale the trading operations function powering Mercury’s SEC-registered investment advisor and FINRA-member broker-dealer. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone with deep brokerage and trading operations expertise who can both set the standard for how the function operates and step directly into complex operational work when needed. This role is ideal for someone who has operated in a detail-rich, regulated environment, has strong opinions about what good trading operations looks like, communicates clearly across technical and non-technical teams, and wants the opportunity to build and evolve the function rather than simply inherit it.

*Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

In this role, you will:

• Own the trading operations and supervisory framework, providing licensed principal oversight of order and trade activity across money market funds, mutual funds, ETFs, and fixed income; oversee operational controls, reconciliations, exceptions, and escalations, partnering closely with Engineering and Product on system-managed workflows and with our carrying broker and other investment partners to investigate issues, resolve breaks, and ensure trading activity operates within established procedures and supervisory requirements.
• Own the trade surveillance and operational control framework, including licensed supervisory review where required, oversight of pre- and post-trade controls, best execution monitoring, trade breaks and errors, escalation and remediation, and evidence that required reviews and controls are operating as designed; coordinate with Financial Crimes on surveillance alerts, suspicious activity escalations, and shared monitoring obligations.
• Own supervision of trading and order-flow reporting obligations, including CAT (all elements, including annual clock synchronization), CAIS, and TRACE, coordinating with our carrying broker and third-party reporting vendor; ensure timely and accurate compliance with SEC Rules 606 and 607 and FINRA Rule 6151, and provide supervisory review of customer account statements and trade confirmations.
• Serve as the operational escalation point for trade errors, breaks, and settlement issues, coordinating investigation and resolution across Engineering, Product, Compliance, and our carrying and executing partners, assessing customer impact, and ensuring recurring issues result in appropriate process or control improvements.
• Oversee trading-related books and records requirements, partnering with Engineering, Compliance, and our carrying broker to ensure required trade, order, allocation, and supervisory records are appropriately generated, retained, and retrievable.
• Own and maintain trading operations procedures and contribute to applicable Written Supervisory Procedures, ensuring documented controls and supervisory practices remain aligned with how our products, systems, and partner relationships operate.
• Lead trading operations readiness for regulatory exams, audits, and internal testing, including producing operational evidence, supporting responses, remediating findings, and translating identified gaps into sustainable process or system improvements.
• Manage day-to-day operational relationships with our carrying broker, executing brokers, custodians, fund companies, and transfer agents, including escalations, service-level performance, issue resolution, and operational change management.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering on system-managed trading workflows and controls, bringing the operational and supervisory perspective to requirements, pressure-testing exceptions and edge cases, and ensuring appropriate operational readiness and oversight before launch, including post-launch operational testing to confirm controls perform as designed in production.
• Build the reporting and operational visibility needed to oversee the trading function, including volumes, breaks and errors, aging exceptions, settlement performance, and control effectiveness, using those insights to identify risk, capacity constraints, and opportunities for improvement.
• Partner with Compliance, Finance, Legal, Risk, Product, and Engineering on new products, partners, and regulatory changes, defining the trading operations and supervisory requirements needed to launch and operate them safely.

You should:

• Hold active FINRA Series 7, Series 63, and Series 24 licenses (Series 99 or Series 57 a plus.
• 8+ years in trading, brokerage, or investment operations, including direct ownership of trade lifecycle, settlement, or trading control functions.
• Have hands-on operational experience across fixed income, mutual funds, and ETFs — you know where each product breaks and why.
• Have built or materially improved a trade surveillance or operational control framework, not just executed someone else’s.
• Possess a strong working knowledge of the operational requirements under FINRA and SEC rules — including recordkeeping, supervision, best execution, trade reporting, and customer protection — and know how to apply them to workflows that don’t have an obvious precedent.
• Communicate clearly in writing — procedures, escalations, and post-mortems that a regulator, an engineer, and an executive can each read and act on.
• Be comfortable operating in ambiguity and at speed, and be willing to design the process rather than wait for one.
• Bring judgment about when to automate, when to add a control, and when to accept a manual step — and be able to defend the call.

Nice to have:

• Experience at a fintech or high-growth firm operating a broker-dealer or RIA at scale.
• Experience standing up a new product, partner, or clearing relationships from scratch.
• Comfort with SQL or working directly in internal tooling to investigate issues yourself.

Mercury values diversity & belonging and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All individuals seeking employment at Mercury are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristic. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for applicants with disabilities or special needs. If you need assistance, or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know once you are contacted about a role.

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US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: 135000 - 168700 USD
US employees outside of New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: 121500 - 151800 USD