Fraud Intelligence Lead: Live Investigations & Strategy

Plaid; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Plaid is seeking a Fraud Intelligence Lead to build and lead a small, high‑leverage team handling live casework across Protect, IDV, and Payments/ACH. You will hire and coach analysts while staying close to hands‑on investigations and SEV responses.

The role requires 5+ years of fraud experience, strong communication, and collaboration with data science and product teams to improve models and signals. Location is San Francisco with room for leadership impact.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of applied fraud experience in a high-velocity environment (fintech, consumer payments, banking, SaaS, marketplace risk, or security research)
• Investigator mindset: pattern synthesis, hypothesis testing, and skilled triage between signal and noise
• End-to-end investigation experience reconstructing attacker intent and behavior in multi-step attack sequences across accounts, devices, and identities
• Post-containment incident response experience with a deep emphasis on post-mortems and root cause analysis
• Dark and grey-web navigation and investigation experience; ability to assess source credibility and translate external intelligence into actionable insights
• Strong communication: ability to explain complex, ambiguous behavior to technical and non-technical audiences
• Tool fluency with data environments and investigative toolchains (BI tools, anomaly detection, case trackers)
• SQL for deep data querying and exploratory analysis
• Python for scripting, rapid prototyping, and analytical workflows

Responsibilities

• Build and coach Fraud Intelligence Analysts to define rigorous investigation, triage, and reporting standards
• Own coverage across Protect/IDV and Payments/ACH pods and adjust staffing as volume shifts
• Represent the Fraud Intelligence team in product and model roadmap discussions
• Report team health, casework trends, and emerging risks to leadership and escalate SEVs when needed
• Lead investigations into complex fraud cases across identities, accounts, devices, and transactions
• Collaborate with Data Science, ML/AI, and Product teams to improve labeling and model inputs

Job description

Plaid is seeking a Fraud Intelligence Lead to build and lead a small, high‑leverage team handling live casework across Protect, IDV, and Payments/ACH. You will hire and coach analysts while staying close to hands‑on investigations and SEV responses.

The role requires 5+ years of fraud experience, strong communication, and collaboration with data science and product teams to improve models and signals. Location is San Francisco with room for leadership impact.