Senior Data Scientist, Decisions - Risk

We are seeking a talented and highly experienced Senior Data Scientist to join our Data Science team within the critical Risk domain. This role uniquely combines hands-on development of vital risk prevention models, contributing to the technological strategy, and driving innovation in the field of AI Agents. QUALIFICATIONS: * 7+ years of experience as a Data Scientist, with a proven track record of applying advanced statistical and machine learning methods on real-world problems (or 3+ years with a PhD). * Strong background and practical experience leading the end-to-end execution of complex Machine Learning projects. * Comfort with the realities of risk modeling: highly imbalanced and adversarial data, delayed/noisy labels, and the precision-vs-recall tradeoffs of acting on legitimate users. * Full ownership of projects from initial idea through production deployment, working closely with engineering to get there. * Experience in Generative AI, defining, building and evaluating AI-agents and leveraging foundational language models for introducing advanced new capabilities within existing products and systems. * Experience in working with large-scale data processing pipelines, Cloud Computing and Machine Learning Operations. * Demonstrated habit of working with AI: actively use LLMs/agentic tooling in your day-to-day workflow, and you instinctively turn recurring problems into reusable automation. * B.Sc in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Electrical, Statistics, or a related quantitative field. BONUS POINTS:  * Experience developing models in the Risk domain (such as Fraud Detection, Anomaly Detection, Anti-Money Laundering) or Fintech. * M.Sc/PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Electrical, Statistics, or a related quantitative field. HOW IS YOUR DAY GOING TO LOOK, WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING?  As a Senior Data Scientist for Risk, you will be responsible for: * Hands-on Development: Actively leading the design, building, and deployment of critical Machine Learning and Gen-AI models for identifying, classifying, and preventing risks and fraud. * Technical Leadership & Strategy: Contributing to the Data Science strategy for the Risk domain, identifying critical business and technological opportunities, and setting high technical standards. * AI Agents Innovation: Driving the team's efforts in the field of AI Agents within Risk, build and evaluate agentic workflows that triage and explain risk decisions, with eval harnesses you can trust to gate releases and ensure reliability and accuracy in production. * Production Ownership: Ensuring Data Science solutions transition reliably, scalably, and efficiently from concept to production, making a significant impact on the business. HOW YOU'LL MAKE AN IMPACT? This role is critical to Melio's ability to continue scaling securely. In this position, you will drive the development of the next generation of cutting-edge methods that will: * Help small businesses manage their finances in a better, safer way using Melio. * Help Melio grow its customer base while maintaining a low-risk profile. * Drive impact by leveraging LLMs and Agentic Workflows to proactively identify sophisticated fraud patterns, mitigating financial risk while maintaining a seamless and secure experience for legitimate users. ABOUT US Melio builds business-to-business (B2B) payment tools so small business owners can spend less time in the back office and more time on their craft. As the fastest-growing B2B payment platform in the US, Melio is working hard to find new and better ways to help small businesses succeed in the ways that work best for them. With offices in New York, Denver, and Tel Aviv, and a vibrant work culture, Melio is expanding every single day. We are a diverse group of people who love what we do and do what we love. If you are a driven and passionate team player, you will fit right in. We are an equal-opportunity employer and are always on the lookout for top-notch talent. Please reach out if you would like to join us on this exciting journey! ABOUT THE HIRING DEPARTMENT The Risk, Compliance & Policy Group plays a critical role in protecting the company from regulatory, financial, and reputational risk. We are an engineering group comprising five specialized teams, one of which is the Data Science team (which you will be a part of). We enforce company policies, compliance obligations, and prevent fraudulent events by evaluating payments and customers based on internal and external data.     #LI-TG

We believe that the way people interact with their finances will drastically improve in the next few years. We’re dedicated to empowering this transformation by building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to create their own products. Plaid powers the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life. We work with thousands of companies like Venmo, SoFi, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Plaid’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Washington D.C., London and Amsterdam. The Embedded Insights team builds machine learning models to enable better internal decision making and to power the Plaid product suite. We are structured as a central team of MLEs and Data Scientists, and embed with partner teams to bring ML models to life. As the first Data Scientist on Plaid’s Embedded Insights team within the Data organization, you will play a foundational role in building the analytics and measurement framework that supports a broad portfolio of internal and customer-facing products. You will partner closely with product, engineering, and machine learning teams to drive data-informed decision making, evaluate product and model performance, and contribute directly to the health and growth of the Plaid network. In this role, you will analyze entities across the Plaid network to better understand behavior patterns and develop metrics and monitoring systems that identify anomalies and emerging risks. You will create dashboards and reporting frameworks that provide clear visibility into machine learning model performance, while also evaluating the impact and value of these models on both customer and internal datasets. A key part of your work will involve translating complex analyses into compelling, actionable narratives for technical and business stakeholders. You will design and analyze experiments, communicate findings across teams, and use data-driven insights to uncover opportunities to improve existing products and expand Plaid’s offerings. Responsibilities: * Applying your expertise in quantitative analysis, data mining, and data visualization to keep the Plaid network safe and improve our product suite. * Informing and influencing product and engineering teams through your data analysis and presentations. * Making long-term data science roadmap decisions like how machine learning and data science iteration should be done at Plaid. * Championing a data-first approach toward decision-making across the entire organization. Qualifications: * 5+ years of industry experience in a Data Science role. * Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience in Computer Science, Statistics. Engineering, Economics, or a closely related field. * Experience with Payment Risk, Fraud or Trust & Safety. * Deep familiarity with SQL and data visualization tools. * Understanding of modern machine learning techniques, such as classification, clustering, optimization. * Proven ability to tailor your solutions to business problems in a cross-functional team. * Ability to code and iterate independently in Python to conduct exploratory data analysis. * Experience building data pipelines in DBT or Airflow is a plus. Our mission at Plaid is to unlock financial freedom for everyone. To support that mission, we seek to build a diverse team of driven individuals who care deeply about making the financial ecosystem more equitable. We recognize that strong qualifications can come from both prior work experiences and lived experiences. We encourage you to apply to a role even if your experience doesn't fully match the job description. We are always looking for team members that will bring something unique to Plaid! Plaid is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion or religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, military or veteran status, disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Plaid is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance with your application or interviews due to a disability, please let us know at accommodations@plaid.com. Please review our Candidate Privacy Notice here. Additional compensation in the form(s) of equity and/or commission are dependent on the position offered. Plaid provides a comprehensive benefit plan, including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k). Pay is based on factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience and skillset, and location. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.