Payments Escalation Specialist

Location: UK based/ Remote

About tiney

tiney is building a better childcare system. We help passionate, talented people open their own childminding businesses from home—giving families more access to quality, affordable care in their local community. Central to tiney experience is an app which childminders use to run their business, including education tools, payments, contracts, messaging and much more. Backed by top investors and built by a team of educators and technologists, we’re on a mission to unlock the potential of every child. 

Your Role

We’re looking for a Payments Escalation Specialist to join our Customer Operations team. This role is central to delivering an excellent payments and billing experience at scale, taking ownership of escalated cases, providing clear and timely resolutions to customers, and enabling our frontline team to focus on their core work by reducing the volume of escalations over time.

Alongside managing your own caseload, you’ll also support our frontline team by advising on best practice and sharing learnings, helping more queries to be resolved at first contact. This role is about working through complex payment situations, and ensuring our customers feel supported when issues arise.

Location: Remote (UK-based) Ideally 1 day in the office in London. You’ll also join us in-person for off-sites and team building throughout the year.

You’ll collaborate across functions – from Product and Operations to Marketing and Education – helping bring our mission to life in every pixel, process, or person you work with.

What you’ll be doing

• Case ownership: Taking end to end responsibility for escalated payments and billing cases, working directly with childminders, parents and local authorities by phone and in writing

• Customer service: Provide clear timely and empathetic resolutions that help customers feel supported and informed throughout

• Team guidance: Support frontline team members by advising on best practice

• Payment reconciliations: Ensuring our customers are paid accurately and on time by reconciling large bulk payments we receive

• Escalation reduction: Spot trends with repeated escalation, provide feedback to the Payments Team Lead and Supervisor to help prevent future escalated cases

• Work with local authorities: Act as a point of contact for local authorities on payment related queries, build strong relationships and ensure accurate, timely information flows both ways 

• Iteration & Learning: Test, learn, and adapt – nothing is sacred if a better way is possible

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for someone who combines strong attention to detail with a structured approach to work. You’ll be confident tackling complex information, turning it into clear actions, and solving problems for customers. You should also bring an interest in how payments operate within a business, and a collaborative, mission driven mindset.

Must-haves:

• 2+ years experience in payments, financial services, or a similarly regulated industry, handling cases, disputes, or complaints

• Strong customer communication skills, confident handling complex conversations by phone and in writing

• Problem-solving mindset, with the judgement to apply policy consistently while providing excellent customer experience 

• Confidence working with financial data and reporting to ensure accuracy across multiple systems

• Data analysis skills: able to work with spreadsheets, reconcile large and complex payments, and spot anomalies

• Continuous optimisation: You come up with innovative and scalable solutions to day-to-day problems and suggest changes to processes to improve efficiency

• Familiarity with fraud processes and collections processes 

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience working with Local Authorities, childcare funding, or public sector payments.

Interview Process

We like to keep things friendly, thoughtful and efficient. Here’s what you can expect:

• Initial Call – A short video chat with someone from our people team

• Hiring Manager Interview – A deep dive into your experience and skills

• Task Presentation & Team Chat – We’ll ask you to prepare something relevant to the role

• Culture & Values Chat - Meet with the wider team

• Offer – We move fast when we know we’ve found the right person!

Benefits:

• At home Workstation set up

• Company Stock options

• 28 days paid leave ( including 4 days during our Christmas closedown)

• Life and long term sickness insurance

• Up to £5k of childcare contributions for working parents

• A paid reflection day during your first month

• A day off for your birthday

• A paid sabbatical after 5 years of employment

• Access to Self Space therapy sessions

• Whole team social activities

We’re building something meaningful – and we want brilliant, kind people like you to help us do it.

Our Commitment

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity, foster inclusion, and are committed to building a team that reflects the children and communities we serve.

If our mission excites you, but you’re not sure you meet every requirement – please apply anyway. We’d love to hear from you.