Director, Data Science and Machine Learning (Risk and Fraud)

Trustly; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 240,000 - 370,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible PTO

Medical, dental, vision

Home office setup

Internet stipend

Retirement plan match

Job summary

Trustly's Data team is seeking a hands-on leader to own and deploy machine learning models that power payments risk and decisioning. You will mentor a team of Data Scientists and ML Engineers and shape a production-ready roadmap that balances performance and business impact.

Based in San Francisco or New York, this hybrid role requires 8+ years in ML with leadership, strong Python/SQL skills, and experience with real-time inference.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience building and deploying ML models in production.
• 2+ years of leading a team.
• Strong Python and SQL skills with large-scale data processing.
• Experience with real-time inference and model monitoring in low-latency environments.
• Experience in fraud or payments risk is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead the team responsible for building and deploying ML models.
• Mentor Data Scientists and ML Engineers.
• Own model roadmap, performance, and production outcomes.
• Collaborate with Risk, Product, and Finance on business impact.

Skills

Machine Learning

Leadership

Python

SQL

Data Analysis

Education

Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field

Tools

Athena

Trino

Spark

Redshift

Snowflake

BigQuery

Job description

Who We Are

At Trustly, we're building a smarter, faster, and more secure financial future by revolutionizing the world of payments. As a global leader in Open Banking Payments, we are establishing Pay by Bank as the new standard at checkout, providing unparalleled freedom, speed, and ease to millions of consumers and merchants worldwide.

Who We Are

At Trustly, we're building a smarter, faster, and more secure financial future by revolutionizing the world of payments. As a global leader in Open Banking Payments, we are establishing Pay by Bank as the new standard at checkout, providing unparalleled freedom, speed, and ease to millions of consumers and merchants worldwide.
Our Ambition: To build the world’s most disruptive payment network and redefine what the payment experience should feel like.
Trustly is a global team of innovators, collaborators, and doers. If you are driven by a strong sense of purpose and thrive in a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and high-growth environment, join us and be part of a team that’s transforming the way the world pays.

About The Team

The Data team at Trustly is the backbone of our decision-making and product innovation. We are a global, multidisciplinary collective of Software Engineers, Data Engineers, Machine Learning Specialists, Scientists, and Analysts who believe that data is more than just rows and columns - it is the fuel for a more transparent financial ecosystem.
We operate at the intersection of high-scale engineering and deep financial intelligence. Our team processes millions of transactions in real time, turning complex Open Banking signals into seamless payment experiences. We pride ourselves on a culture of intellectual curiosity, technical excellence, and extreme ownership.

About The Role

You will lead the team responsible for building and deploying the machine learning models that determine whether transactions are approved and guaranteed.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will build and ship models yourself while leading, mentoring, and developing a team of Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers. You will own not only the team's roadmap, but also the quality, performance, and business impact of what it delivers in production.
Your work will sit at the intersection of machine learning, payments risk, product, and engineering, with direct impact on approval rates, fraud and loss performance, customer experience, and Trustly's broader payments network.

What You’ll Do

Build and Ship Models

• Build, validate, deploy, and continuously improve machine learning models across ACH return risk, fraud, and account takeover.
• Develop real-time, online, and offline features using transaction, account, device, and behavioral data.
• Design and analyze experiments to evaluate model and policy changes, including champion/challenger tests, holdouts, and staged rollouts.
• Quantify the impact of model changes across loss rates, approval rates, ROI, customer experience, and merchant outcomes.
• Translate complex model performance and findings into clear, actionable insights for non-technical partners across Risk, Product, Finance, and other areas of the business.

Lead the Team and Model Portfolio

• Mentor, develop, and grow a team of full-stack Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers.
• Hire and level talent with the right balance of modeling depth, experimentation expertise, and production engineering capability.
• Own the team's delivery and outcomes: what ships, when it ships, how it performs, and whether it holds up in production.
• Own the model roadmap across ACH return risk, fraud, and account takeover, including prioritization, model reviews, and postmortems following loss events.
• Own model performance in production, including monitoring, drift detection, retraining cadence, model updates, and decisions around when models should be replaced or retired.
• Establish a high bar for technical quality, operational rigor, and measurable business impact across the team.

Govern, Influence, and Partner

• Maintain strong model documentation, validation evidence, and audit trails, and support independent validation of the team's models.
• Ensure production decisions are explainable, with appropriate reason codes available when decisions need to be justified to merchants, internal reviewers, or auditors.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering on scoring latency, feature availability at decision time, and integration into Trustly's risk engine.
• Co‑own decision strategy and the policy layer with Risk Operations, translating model outputs into business outcomes.
• Quantify and communicate the tradeoffs between approval rates, customer experience, and loss rates when recommending changes.
• Co‑own loss forecasting with Finance and Risk, connecting model performance and behavior directly to financial outcomes.
• Present model performance, loss drivers, emerging risks, and roadmap tradeoffs to senior and executive stakeholders.

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of experience building and deploying machine learning models into production, including at least 2 years leading a team.
• A leader who remains deeply hands-on and is currently capable of independently building, deploying, and evaluating a production machine learning model.
• Strong Python and SQL skills, with experience working with large-scale datasets using distributed processing engines or cloud data warehouses such as Athena, Trino, Spark, Redshift, Snowflake, or BigQuery.
• Direct experience in fraud, credit risk, payments risk, or another high-stakes decisioning environment, including rare-event modeling, label delay, reject inference, and understanding the difference between strong model metrics and strong business decisions.
• Experience with real-time inference and production model monitoring in a low-latency decisioning environment, including drift detection, retraining strategies, and model updates.
• Experience owning or materially contributing to a loss budget or loss forecast, with the ability to translate model behavior and risk performance into financial impact for executives and auditors.
• Strong experimentation experience for model and policy changes, including champion/challenger testing, holdouts, staged rollouts, and rigorous measurement of outcomes.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring and developing Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers.

Preferred

• Bachelor's degree in a quantitative discipline such as Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, or Operations Research.
• Strong proficiency with pandas and machine learning libraries such as scikit-learn, XGBoost, LightGBM, or CatBoost.
• ACH or EFT domain expertise, including familiarity with NACHA return codes and return economics.
• Experience working with open banking or bank transaction data.
• Experience with cloud machine learning platforms such as Databricks, AWS SageMaker, or GCP Vertex AI.
• Experience with feature stores, streaming feature computation, rules engines, or real-time decisioning systems.
• Experience applying sequence or graph-based modeling techniques to behavioral or transaction data, such as recurrent architectures or entity-link analysis for identifying fraud networks.
• Exposure to model risk management and governance within financial services.
• Experience evaluating, integrating, or managing third-party risk data and model providers.

LOCATION & WORKPLACE

This is a hybrid role based out of our San Francisco or New York hubs. We look for team members to be in the office Tuesday through Thursday.

SALARY RANGES IN US-BASED ROLE POSTING

Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Recruiters can share more information with applicants about the specific salary range for preferred locations during the hiring process. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include other perks and benefits.

What We Offer

At Trustly, you will have the chance to solve meaningful challenges alongside some of the brightest minds in FinTech. Together, we are shaping the future of payments in an environment that celebrates curiosity, collaboration, and innovation. You will be challenged and empowered to grow, making a real impact every step of the way.

Our team is as diverse as the global footprint we serve, with colleagues across Silicon Valley, the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Europe, and beyond. At Trustly, we foster a workplace where everyone feels they belong—a place where teamwork thrives, ideas flourish, and we never forget to have fun along the way.

We Offer Innovative Perks And Benefits Packages That Include

• Flexible paid time off & generous PTO accrual plans
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and other insurances
• FSA & HSA plans for medical and dependent care
• Home office set-up allowance
• Internet stipend
• Retirement plan match for 401k and RRSP
• Gender-neutral paid parental leave, and more!

(The benefits and total compensation packages outlined above are for full-time employees; some exclusions apply for temporary positions.)

At Trustly, we embrace and celebrate diversity of all forms and the value it brings to our employees and customers. We are proud and committed to being an Equal Opportunity Employer and believe an open and inclusive environment enables people to do their best work. All decisions regarding hiring, advancement, and any other aspects of employment are made solely on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.

Compensation Range: $240K - $370K