Data Scientist Tech Lead- E-Commerce Anti-Fraud

TikTok USDS Joint Venture; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 201,000 - 395,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

401(k) matching

Paid parental leave

Wellbeing benefits

Paid holidays

Job summary

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is seeking an experienced Anti-Fraud Data Scientist to reduce fraud and policy violations across TikTok Shop. You will design risk rules, dashboards and real-time alerts to protect buyers, merchants and creators.

The role requires hands-on analytics, leadership to mentor junior data scientists, and building AI-enabled workflows for scalable risk detection in a fast-growing ecommerce environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in mathematics, statistics, computer science, data analytics, engineering, or related field.
• Proficient in SQL and Python/R.
• 5+ years of relevant experience in anti-fraud, risk management, trust & safety, data analytics or data science in tech/e-commerce.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled workflows and hands-on experience building or implementing AI-powered tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor junior data scientists.
• Initiate and coordinate team-wide initiatives to improve efficiency and advance the team's skills.
• Represent and advocate for the team when collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Leverage modern AI tools and LLMs to automate risk workflows and optimize analytics.
• Conduct exploratory data analysis to uncover emerging fraud vectors and behavioral anomalies.
• Define risk metrics, build self-serve dashboards and real-time alerting.

Skills

SQL

Python/R

Anti-fraud

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

AI tools

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team

E-commerce's Governance and Experience is a global team responsible for ensuring our TikTok Shop marketplace is safe and trustworthy for users, sellers, and creators. We value user satisfaction and work on policies, rules, and systems to ensure quality.

The USDS Risk Control and Security team within GNE focuses on fighting various forms of fraud and abuse within the TikTok Shop ecosystem via insight generation, scaled enforcement, automation, and prevention.

About the Role

The Risk Control & Security Anti-Fraud Data Scientist role focuses on mitigating fraud, abuse, policy violations and business risks for TikTok's e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop. This role is critical in protecting our buyer, merchant, and creator communities, ensuring compliance with internal policies and industry regulations while balancing customer experience and business growth.

Responsibilities:

• - Lead and mentor junior data scientists
• - Initiate and coordinate team-wide initiatives to improve efficiency and advance the team's skills
• - Represent and advocate for the team when collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders.
• - Leverage modern AI tools and LLMs to automate risk workflows, optimize analytics, and streamline detection capabilities.
• - Conduct complex, exploratory data analysis to uncover emerging fraud vectors, behavioral anomalies, and latent platform vulnerabilities.
• - Define risk metrics, construct self-serve dashboards, and build real-time automated alerting/circuit breakers for rapid threat response and executive visibility.
• - Formulate, validate, configure, and deploy risk strategies and rules to mitigate fraud with minimal false positives.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• - Bachelor's degree in mathematics, statistics, computer science, data analytics, engineering, or related field
• - Proficient in SQL and Python/R
• - 5+ years of relevant experience in one of the following areas: Anti-fraud, Risk Management, Trust & Safety, Data Analytics, or Data Science in e-commerce or the general tech industry
• - Familiarity with AI-enabled workflows and hands-on experience building or implementing AI-powered tools, automations, or solutions.

Preferred Qualifications:

• - Excellent communication skills with the ability to work independently with global teams
• - Proactive, data-driven, results-oriented, and a high desire to learn and contribute
• - Strong leadership and mentoring skills
• - Ability to navigate ambiguity and show good judgement

About USDS

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.

On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.

Why Join Us

Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.

We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

USDS Reasonable Accommodation

USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $201000 - $395280 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;

2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and

3. Exercising sound judgment.