Middle/Senior Operations Risk Analyst

We are seeking a strategic, detail-driven Middle/Senior Risk Operations Analyst to lead risk management across our payments, vendor, and compliance domains. In a fast-moving, globally operating business, we need someone who can build robust risk frameworks, govern third-party relationships, and drive a risk-informed culture across the organisation, while maintaining hands-on ownership of the issues that matter most.

This role is ideal for someone with deep expertise in financial risk, regulatory compliance, and operational risk management, who is equally comfortable presenting to senior leadership while collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver meaningful business insights.

Job responsibilities:

• Oversee the identification, assessment, and management of complex and emerging risks across the organisation
• Direct the development, maintenance, and governance of comprehensive risk registers, ensuring strategic risks and mitigation actions are accurately captured, escalated, and monitored
• Maintain and continuously improve the organisation's risk appetite statement, tolerance thresholds, and escalation matrix, lead periodic risk assessments and audits to identify potential issues, gaps, and opportunities for improvement
• Ensure adherence to evolving legislation, standards, thresholds globally as we are expanding to new markets, while driving continuous improvement in risk management practices
• Own regulatory compliance across CCPC, GDPR, FTC, and card network rules, leading external audits, closing compliance gaps, and translating regulatory changes into actionable internal policy.
• Plan and manage risk projects and initiatives across the organisation, collaborating with executive leadership, Tech, Operations, and external stakeholders to meet objectives and deadlines.
• Lead vendor and third-party payment risk, from due diligence and onboarding through to ongoing monitoring, payment control governance, and anomaly investigation in coordination with Finance and Legal.
• Deliver clear risk reporting and insights to senior leadership and governance boards; provide expert guidance to cross-functional teams to embed risk-informed decision-making into day-to-day operations.

Who You Are:

• 2-5+ years of experience in risk management, project management, operations, compliance, or a related field within a payments, fintech, or IT/SaaS environment
• You can work effectively with a diverse range of people and working styles to get stuff done, and are able to thoughtfully and constructively challenge and influence the people you work with
• Being able to ground the thinking in data, facts and insights but are equally comfortable making decisions quickly if/when the complete/ideal data is unavailable
• Comfortable presenting complex risk topics clearly to senior leadership and external regulators
• Strong project management skills, able to track and drive multiple initiatives simultaneously
• Experience working in Agile environments and collaborating with engineering teams.
• Highly collaborative and results oriented
• Fluent English and Azerbaijani, both written and spoken.

✨ What We Offer

• Dream Team. Average AFEA Group member is young, talented, and passionate, which makes our working environment extremely dynamic.
• A competitive salary. Long story short, we take care of you.
• Sleeping Room. Need to recharge? Our quiet sleeping room is the perfect place to rest and refresh during your day.
• Gaming Area. Table tennis, your favorite games, our PS5 corner will be waiting for you.
• Lunch. Decent and nutritious lunch provided at the office on days you work from the office.
• Snacks & Drinks. Enjoy unlimited snacks, sweets, and drinks available at the office anytime you need a pick-me-up.
• Working Hours. We work 10AM–7PM, so you can skip the rush hour commute and start and end your day stress-free.
• Private health insurance. To keep you away from the trouble, we provide private health insurance.
• Cool Tech Stack. Macbook or Windows based on your preference, adjustable desktop, and any other necessary gadget you may need in your job.
• Coursera free pass. Monthly Coursera subscription for your personal development.
• A Top-Notch Office. Located at the heart of Baku, right next to Khatai Metro station.
• Extra Leave Days. In addition to your official vacation, you enjoy 6 extra paid days off to use whenever you need them.

⏰Working hours:

You’ll be working 5 days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (13:00-14:00 lunch time). Four days will be based in the office, and one day (Friday) you can work from home.

💡Why This Role Matters

This is an ownership role, not a support function. You will build and govern the risk infrastructure that protects a globally operating payments business, covering vendor relationships, dispute strategy, regulatory compliance, and fraud controls.

You'll work directly with senior leadership, shape risk culture across the organisation, with real influence over how the function grows. If you want a role where your decisions have direct impact on the business, this is it.

We look forward to receiving your application.

✅Please be advised that only shortlisted candidates will be invited to the further stages of the recruitment process.