u/BanhShark

I've spent the last several years building payment platforms and leading engineering teams focused on:
• Global payment method integrations (cards, wallets, APMs)
• Subscription billing and recurring payments
• Merchant payouts and multi-currency settlements
• Chargeback and dispute automation
• Fraud and risk systems
• Tax and compliance workflows
• High-volume payment processing
A recurring pattern: most merchants don't have a chargeback problem—they have a visibility, workflow, and prevention problem.
Teams lose significant time:
Gathering dispute evidence

Managing fraud and processor alerts

Tracking recurring billing issues

Analyzing dispute trends

Coordinating across support, payments, and risk

Many existing tools are fragmented, costly, or built for large enterprises.
I'm exploring a SaaS product focused on payment operations and dispute management, and would love feedback from merchants, payment professionals, and founders.
Questions:
What's your biggest payments operations pain point?

For recurring payments, what drives the most disputes?

Have you built internal tools because existing solutions fell short?

Would you pay for better dispute and payment operations visibility and automation?

I'm also interested in connecting with someone who has deep payments experience and has:
Built a payments product

Worked at a processor, acquirer, gateway, or PSP

Led payments, risk, or fraud operations

Built and scaled a B2B SaaS company

I bring strong technical leadership and hands-on experience building large-scale payment systems. Looking for feedback first, but open to exploring a partnership if there's strong alignment.
DMs are open.

I could really use some perspective.

About a year ago, I was actively trying to switch jobs for better compensation and growth. I’m currently an Engineering Manager / Tech Lead working mostly on backend systems in payments, risk, fraud, and billing.
After multiple rejections (some early-stage, some after interviews), I gradually lost momentum and eventually stopped preparing altogether. Now I feel stuck — I want to try again, but I don’t have the same motivation or confidence anymore.
I’m trying to figure out:
How do you restart after a long pause and repeated failures?

How do you stay consistent with prep when results aren’t immediate?

Has anyone here taken a break and then successfully bounced back?

Is it better to double down on my niche (payments/risk) or broaden into general backend/platform roles?

I’m not looking for generic “keep trying” advice — more interested in real experiences, what actually worked, and what you changed after hitting a wall.
Appreciate any honest input.