Staff, Fraud Risk Strategy

Wealthsimple; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Wealthsimple Inc. is seeking a Staff Fraud Countermeasures Lead to own the strategy for card fraud across our evolving product suite.

You’ll define direction for application, transaction and account takeover defenses with real accountability for outcomes, operating as a senior individual contributor in Canada. You’ll design and backtest detection rules, tune ML risk scores, and balance fraud savings against user experience and operating costs.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in fraud prevention, including 3+ years on card fraud (prepaid or credit) at an issuer, fintech or payments platform.
• Hands-on ownership of card fraud strategy across application, transaction and account takeover fraud.
• Advanced SQL; writes complex queries against transaction-level data.
• Track record of building, backtesting, shipping and tuning fraud rules with measurable impact.
• Experience quantifying fraud savings against operational and customer experience costs.
• Experience using AI tools in daily work and examples of impact.
• Ability to influence Product, Engineering, credit risk, operations and vendors without direct authority.
• Clear communication with technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership.
• Nice to have: Knowledge of Visa and Mastercard network rules, dispute processes and chargebacks.

Responsibilities

• Own fraud strategy and execution across application, transaction and account takeover fraud for card products.
• Manage the card fraud loss budget as volumes grow and guard against attacks.
• Design, backtest, ship and tune detection rules, and set thresholds on ML risk scores.
• Weigh fraud losses prevented against operational cost and client experience before choosing an approach.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to build controls that stop fraud without blocking legitimate clients.
• Guide data scientists and analytics developers in your pod, and mentor teammates on strategy and rule building.

Skills

Fraud prevention

Card fraud strategy

Advanced SQL

Fraud rules tuning

Quantifying fraud savings

AI tools

Influence without authority

Communication

Visa/Mastercard knowledge

Tools

ML risk scoring

Fraud detection systems

Job description

Build something people love

Wealthsimple is Canada’s leading financial innovator. The company offers a full suite of simple, sophisticated financial products across managed investing, do-it-yourself trading, cryptocurrency, tax filing, spending and saving. Wealthsimple currently serves more than 4 million Canadians and holds over $169 billion in assets under administration. The company was founded in 2014 by a team of financial experts and technology entrepreneurs, and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

We're proud of what we've built — and we're just getting started. Read our Culture Manual and learn more about how we work.

About the team

The Fraud Countermeasures team is part of Data Science, and it's how Wealthsimple grows safely. We balance fraud losses with client friction, so legitimate clients can use their money without jumping through hoops. We work in small pods that pair a fraud countermeasures lead with a data scientist and an analytics developer, and we sit alongside Product and Engineering on every new feature launch. We use data to make every decision, and we use AI tools to move faster. If you want to work on hard problems with people who care about craft, you'll fit right in.

About the role

Card fraud is one of the highest-stakes problems at Wealthsimple, and this role owns the strategy for it. You'll set direction for how we prevent application, transaction and account takeover fraud across our card products, and you'll do it independently, with real accountability for the outcome. This is a Staff individual contributor role with manager-level impact: you'll lead through expertise and influence, not direct reports. It's open to candidates in any timezone in Canada.

What you'll do

• Own fraud strategy and execution across application, transaction and account takeover fraud for Wealthsimple's card products.
• Manage the card fraud loss budget as our volumes grow, and guard against the fraud attacks that can blow a budget up.
• Design, backtest, ship and tune detection rules, and set decision thresholds on ML risk scores.
• Weigh fraud losses prevented against operational cost and client experience before you recommend an approach.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to build controls that stop fraud without blocking legitimate clients, like step-up authentication instead of a hard decline.
• Guide the data scientists and analytics developers in your pod, and mentor junior teammates on strategy, rule building and problem-solving.

Skills you bring

• 6+ years of experience in fraud prevention, including 3+ years working directly on card fraud (prepaid or credit) at an issuer, fintech or payments platform.
• Hands-on ownership of card fraud strategy across application, transaction and account takeover fraud.
• Advanced SQL. You write complex queries against transaction-level data yourself, without waiting for an analyst to pull it.
• A track record of building, backtesting, shipping and tuning fraud rules, and explaining the precision, catch rate and approval rate impact of each.
• Experience quantifying fraud savings against operational and client experience costs to make a clear recommendation.
• Experience using AI tools in your daily work, and examples of where they changed your output.
• The ability to influence Product, Engineering, credit risk, operations and external vendors toward a decision without direct authority.
• Clear communication with technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership.
• Nice to have: Knowledge of Visa and Mastercard network rules, dispute processes and chargeback rails.

Who you are

• You set direction on your own and take ownership over outcomes for your space, from fighting fraud attacks to minimizing client friction.
• You make decisions with numbers behind them, and you're honest about what the numbers can't tell you.
• You lead through influence. You can get a roadmap conversation to go your way by rallying others around shared objectives.
• You use AI to aide in your workflow, and know when to question it’s outputs
• You share what you know, and you make the people around you sharper

Why Wealthsimple?

Top-tier health benefits and life insurance

Long-term group savings with employer match, through Wealthsimple for Business

20 vacation days, 4 wellness days, and unlimited sick and mental health days per year*

90 days away: work outside Canada for up to 90 days per year*

Employee resource groups, including Rainbow (2SLGBTQ), Women of WS, and Black at WS

We are a hybrid team with over 1,500 employees across North America. The people are one of the best parts of working here: you'll collaborate with incredibly talented, curious, and driven teammates who are deeply committed to doing great work.

*Unlimited paid sick days, Wellness Days and the 90 day away program do not apply to certain roles.

ICYMI

Technology & Innovation at Wealthsimple:

We move quickly and build thoughtfully. That means we're always looking for better ways to work — whether that's new tools, AI, or rethinking how we approach a problem. We don't expect you to have all the answers, but we do expect curiosity and a willingness to evolve alongside the products we're building.

Inclusion Statement:

We're building products for a diverse world, and we need a diverse team to do it well. We strongly encourage applications from everyone, regardless of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.

Accessibility Statement:

We're committed to an accessible hiring experience. If you need any accommodations throughout the interview process, please let us know — we'll work with you to make sure you have what you need. We also welcome any feedback on how we can better accommodate candidates with accessibility needs.

AI in Hiring:

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of our hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our team but don't replace human judgment – all final hiring decisions are made by people. If you have questions about how your data is used, reach out to us.