Associate Specialist, Operations - Cross‑Border Transactions

Our Purpose
Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we're helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.
Title and Summary
Associate Specialist, Operations - Cross-Border Transactions
Role Overview
As an Associate Specialist in the XBS (Cross-Border Services) Transmission team, you will operate as Level 2 support, managing AMER region transaction operations across 24+ countries and 47+ RSPs. In this dual capacity, you will address incidents from initial assessment through advanced escalation, perform comprehensive troubleshooting for technical and systemic transaction issues, and lead root cause analysis (RCA) for critical business incidents.
This position requires strong analytical abilities, expert technical skills, and proactive collaboration with cross-functional teams to ensure smooth transaction flows and drive ongoing process enhancements.
Key Responsibilities
Incident Handling & Transaction Support• Monitor transaction flows and identify anomalies or delays.• Own escalated cases from Level 1 and resolve them within defined SLAs.• Troubleshoot transaction failures, routing issues, and operational errors.• Support the Transaction Operations Team (TOT) with inquiries as needed.• Perform root cause analysis (RCA) for significant incidents and clearly document findings.
Process & Quality Improvements• Identify patterns in recurring issues and suggest improvements.• Contribute to workflow enhancements and automation initiatives.• Update and maintain SOPs for L1 and L2 teams.
Documentation & Reporting• Ensure accurate, complete, and timely documentation for all incidents.• Maintain consistency in logs, timestamps, and tracking fields.• Support periodic training sessions and knowledge-sharing.
Cross-Functional Collaboration• Work closely with BizOps, Treasury, network partners, and integration teams.• Provide guidance to Level 1 teams and help resolve complex cases.• Assist during major incidents, coordinating with partner teams.
Reporting & Governance• Prepare RCA summaries, impact assessments, and stakeholder updates.• Ensure audit readiness through accurate documentation.• Track SLAs and contribute to operational dashboards.
Required Skills & Qualifications• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.• Fluency in English (spoken and written) - required for daily communication across regions.• Experience in operations, payment processing, transaction monitoring, or a similar support function.• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills; familiarity with tools such as Splunk, Grafana, or Salesforce is a plus.• Proficiency with Excel and comfort analyzing datasets.• Excellent communication skills and ability to work with multiple teams.• Availability to work on a fixed morning schedule starting at 07:00 or 08:00 AM (depending on rotation).• Ability to extend working hours when necessary, based on operational or incident needs.• Ability to work in rotational shifts aligned with the team's coverage model.• Required in-office presence (in Mexico City) 3 times per week, following Mastercard's hybrid working expectations.• Ability to remain calm under pressure and manage time-sensitive issues.
Corporate Security Responsibility
All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard's security policies and practices;
• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;
• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and
• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard's guidelines.