Chief Audit Officer (San Francisco)

Arthur C. Clarke famously said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”At Mercury, we aim to deliver a magical experience to our customers who rely on us for their banking* and financial workflows. But behind the magic lies a lot of rigor—internal audit is a key part of keeping Mercury safe, resilient, and worthy of our customers’ trust.As Mercury’s first Chief Audit Officer, you’ll lead the company’s independent assurance program that allows us to scale with confidence. You will serve as a strategic partner to the Board and Audit Committee, providing an objective, enterprise-wide view of our financial, operational, and technical resilience.This role is about finding the right balance between high-velocity innovation and the rigorous expectations of our partner banks and regulators. By moving toward data-driven, continuous monitoring, you will ensure our growth is anchored in integrity. You’ll drive a culture of audit readiness where excellence is the baseline and regulatory exams result in no surprises.Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.Here are some of the things you will do:Own the Audit Vision — evolve the risk-based internal audit strategy and ensure alignment with the company’s growth, regulatory expectations, and emerging risks. Provide Independent Assurance — deliver objective evaluations to the Board and Audit Committee(s) on the effectiveness of our risk management, internal controls, and governance.Ensure we Audit the Stack — own the audit universe; ensuring completeness of Audit coverage across Mercury. Oversee the audit program to ensure the plan includes the appropriate mix of technical and operational audits that dive deep into our business, automated movement of funds, and cloud infrastructure to ensure data integrity and security.Validate the Magic — ensure our audit program includes timely validation that new and existing product workflows and financial controls are operating exactly as intended, identifying potential friction before it impacts the customer.Bridge the Regulatory Gap — act as a key point of contact for our partner banks and regulators, providing them with the confidence that Mercury’s internal oversight is rigorous and proactive.Automate Oversight — design and implement continuous monitoring systems that replace manual checklists with real-time, data-driven audit insights.Champion SustainableRemediation — serve as the senior escalation point to partner with Engineering, Product, and Risk leads to ensure audit findings result in structural improvements, not just temporary fixes and that remediations are appropriately prioritized within the roadmaps, in line with risk. There are lots of paths that could lead you to be successful in a role like this; we think the strongest candidates will have some of these experiences or attributes:Bring proven leadership in audit — you’ve built or scaled internal audit functions within high-growth banking or financial services, ideally at the intersection of traditional finance and fintech innovation.Have technical fluency — you are comfortable in a cloud-native, remote-first environment. You can discuss API integrity and automated controls as easily as you can discuss balance sheets and reconciliations.Navigate the regulatory landscape with confidence — you know what regulators expect, you’re comfortable engaging directly with them, and you can help Mercury anticipate and adapt to a changing environment.Maintain strong and effective independence — you have the fortitude to deliver difficult news and the diplomacy to ensure those insights lead to positive change.Communicate clearly and simply — whether you’re talking to the Board, regulators, engineers, or product teams, you cut through jargon and make risk concepts understandable and actionable.Balance protection with possibility — you know how to safeguard the company without slowing it down, and you see the audit function as a way to unlock and safeguard innovation, not stop it.Lead with curiosity and vision — you’re ambitious about where audit can go in a modern fintech, and you bring the curiosity to explore new ideas, new markets, and new ways of serving customers safely. Inspire and develop others — you build strong teams, mentor future leaders, and foster a culture of accountability, transparency, and trust across the company. The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity, and benefits.Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry. New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $275,400 - $361,400US employees outside of the New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $247,900 - $325,250Mercury 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.#LI-MZ1