Senior Data Scientist, Payment Risk - USDS (AI)

Location: San Jose, United States; fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week

Salary: $144,000–$329,334 annually, with potential discretionary bonuses, incentives, and restricted stock units.

Company

A technology company operating a global social platform, with a U.S. data security organization focused on protecting U.S. user data and platform safety.

What you will do

• Establish a holistic framework for mitigating payment fraud, credit losses, and financial abuse across consumers, merchants, and affiliates.
• Develop risk metrics, dashboards, scenario plans, and simulation tests.
• Apply AI and machine learning to improve automated detection, risk interventions, recall, and false-positive rates.
• Analyze large-scale fraud cases and ad hoc datasets to identify root causes of risk events.
• Design risk solutions that apply appropriate friction to suspicious users based on user characteristics and machine learning models.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and cross-functional teams on risk roadmaps, strategies, and stakeholder communication.

Requirements

• Master’s degree or equivalent practical experience in statistics, mathematics, finance, computer science engineering, or a similar quantitative field.
• At least 3 years of experience in payment risk, risk management, or fraud analytics.
• Strong analytical skills with experience using Excel, SQL, R, Python, Hive, Spark, and statistical or data analysis tools.
• Creative problem-solving, critical thinking, prioritization, ownership, and strong communication skills.
• Ability to influence stakeholders and demonstrate leadership in a fast-paced environment.

Nice to have

• Ph.D. in a relevant quantitative field.
• Strong experience applying AI or machine learning to complex, large-scale risk problems.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance from day one.
• 401(k) savings plan with company match, life insurance, and disability coverage.
• Paid parental leave, 10 paid holidays, 10 paid sick days, and paid personal time.
• Work environment emphasizing curiosity, humility, resilience, continuous learning, and inclusive collaboration.
• Reasonable accommodations are available during the recruitment process.