Lead Analyst, Financial Crimes

Chime Financial, Inc; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 139,000 - 193,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Chime Financial, Inc. is seeking a senior Financial Crimes leader to define how work is done, oversee analysts, and own the most challenging investigations end-to-end. You will set quality standards, calibrate teams, and represent the function with bank partners while shaping scalable coverage and typology development.

You will drive operational rollout, document procedures, and prepare for audits, while leveraging strong SQL and graph analysis skills to map relationships at scale.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in financial crime, fraud, or risk investigations in regulated environments.
• Working knowledge of BSA, USA PATRIOT Act, OFAC and SAR standards.
• Deep experience with transaction monitoring at real volume.
• Typology depth across money laundering and fraud.
• Hands-on in scenario tuning with data or risk partners.
• Experience overseeing vendor/investigation teams.
• Ability to prioritize under high volume and ambiguity.
• Advanced SQL and graph/link analysis tooling experience.
• Certification such as CAMS or CFE preferred.

Responsibilities

• Operate with minimal direction on ambiguous problems and set the approach.
• Define quality standards and calibrate across the team.
• Represent Financial Crimes to partners outside the function.
• Mentor and elevate analysts through calibration and documentation.
• Improve systems with reusable controls, procedures, or typologies.
• Own SOPs and readiness for audits and bank partner reviews.

Skills

Advanced SQL

Graph analysis

Link analysis tooling

Vendor management

AML knowledge

Risk investigations

Judgment under volume

Tools

SQL

Graph analysis tools

Job description

About the role

Chime’s Financial Crimes team protects millions of members from money laundering, fraud, and the organized networks that target consumer financial platforms. We work in a bank-partner model: we run detection and investigation, and we elevate unusual activity to our bank partners, who hold the filing obligation. That means our written work product is read by outside parties, and the quality bar is correspondingly high.

This is a senior individual contributor role. You will set the standard for how financial crime work is done here rather than working a queue — defining what good looks like, raising the ceiling for the analysts you lead, and owning the hardest problems on the team end to end.

The base salary offered for this role and level of experience will begin at $139,000.00 and up to $193,000.00. Full-time employees are also eligible for a bonus, competitive equity package, and benefits. The actual base salary offered may be higher, depending on your location, skills, qualifications, and experience.

In this role, you can expect to:

• Operate with minimal direction on problems that arrive ambiguous, and you define the approach rather than waiting for one.
• Set the quality standard others calibrate to with defensible judgement calls.
• Move work across team boundaries without formal authority, and you are trusted to represent Financial Crimes to partners outside the function.
• Raise the ceiling of the people around you — through calibration, coaching, documentation, and the examples you set in your own casework.
• Improve the system, not just the case. Every hard investigation should leave behind something reusable: a control, a procedure, a detection change, or a documented typology.
• What you will own:
  • Vendor Management. You will lead, and support, a team of analysts.
  • Vendor team quality. You sample operations work, run calibration with partners, keep apprised of quality assurance trends, and hold quality and productivity expectations where they belong.
  • Risk trend analysis. You understand AML and Fraud risks well enough to follow the pattern of unusual activity across accounts, devices, funding sources, counterparties, and behavioral patterns, and you can show the shape of a network in a way a non-investigator understands.
  • Typology development. You document new and evolving schemes, make them teachable to the wider team, identify if opportunities in coverage are needed, and own the creation of coverage with partners as appropriate.
  • Operational rollout of new coverage. When a new typology or scenario goes live, you design how it will be worked — routing, procedure, evidence standard, and quality checks — before the first alert lands.
  • Procedures and documentation. You own the SOPs for your area and keep them in a state where a third party could read them cold and understand what we do and why.
  • Audit and exam readiness. You prepare the operational side for internal audit, independent testing, and bank partner reviews, and you own remediation of findings assigned to operations through to closure.

To thrive in this role, you have:

• 7+ years in financial crime, fraud, or risk investigations at a bank, fintech, payments company, or comparable regulated environment.
• Working command of BSA, the USA PATRIOT Act, OFAC requirements, and unusual/suspicious activity reporting standards — enough to explain not just the rule but why it exists.
• Deep experience across the transaction monitoring alert lifecycle at real volume, including the operational tradeoffs that come with it.
• Real typology depth across both money laundering and fraud — mule and money movement networks, first-party fraud, synthetic and stolen identity, scams and social engineering, elder financial exploitation, etc.
• Hands‑on involvement in scenario tuning or threshold work alongside data or risk partners, with an understanding of what changing a threshold actually costs.
• Experience overseeing vendor or outsourced investigation teams.
• Judgment under volume. You can distinguish the case that deserves forty hours from the one that deserves forty minutes.
• Comfort with sustained ambiguity. You will spend real time on hypotheses that do not pan out, and you need the judgment to know when to stop.
• Advanced SQL, and fluency with graph or link analysis tooling for mapping relationships at scale.
• CAMS, CFE, or equivalent certification preferred.

#LI-Onsite #LI-BE1

A little about us

At Chime, we believe that everyone can achieve financial progress. We created Chime—a financial technology company, not a bank*—on the premise that core banking services should be helpful, easy, and free. Through our user-friendly tools and intuitive platforms, we empower our members to take control of their finances and work towards their goals. Whether it’s starting a savings account, purchasing a first car or home, launching a business, or pursuing higher education, we’re proud to have helped millions unlock their financial potential.

We’re a team of problem solvers, dreamers, and builders with one shared obsession: our members. From day one, Chimers have worked tirelessly to out-hustle and out-execute competitors to bring our mission to life. Their grit and determination inspire us to work harder every day to deliver the very best experience possible. We each bring an owner’s mindset to our work, refusing to be outdone and holding ourselves accountable to meet and exceed the highest bars for our teams, our company, and our members.

We believe in being bold, dreaming big, and taking risks, while also working together, embracing our diverse perspectives, and giving each other honest feedback. Our culture remains deeply entrepreneurial, encouraging every Chimer to see themselves as stewards of our mission to help everyday Americans unlock their financial progress.

We know that to achieve our mission, we must earn and keep people’s trust—so we hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity in everything we do. These aren’t just words on a wall—our values are embedded in every aspect of our business, serving as a north star that guides us as we work to help millions achieve their financial potential.

Because if we don’t—who will?

*Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by The Bancorp Bank, N.A. or Stride Bank, N.A., Members FDIC.

What we offer for our full-time, regular employees

• Our in-office work policy is designed to keep you connected - with four days a week in the office and Fridays from home for those near one of our offices, plus team and company-wide events depending on location. Whether you’re coming in regularly or are part of our fully remote program, you’ll stay engaged with your work and teammates.
• Benefits that support your work and life, including backup child, elder, and pet care and subsidized commuter benefits for eligible employees.
• Comprehensive health, financial, and wellbeing benefits designed to support you at every stage of life.
• Generous vacation policy and company-wide paid days off
• 1% of your time off to support local community organizations of your choice
• Annual wellness stipend to use towards eligible wellness related expenses
• Up to 22 weeks of paid parental leave for birthing parents and 12 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birthing parents
• Access to family planning reimbursement
• A challenging and fulfilling opportunity to join one of the most experienced teams in FinTech and help millions unlock financial progress

We know that great work can’t be done without a diverse team and inclusive environment. That’s why we specifically look for individuals of varying strengths, skills, backgrounds, and ideas to join our team. We believe this gives us a competitive advantage to better serve our members and helps us all grow as Chimers and individuals.

Chime is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital or family status, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis under provincial, federal, state, and local laws, regulations, or ordinances. We will also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of state and local laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Cook County Ordinance, NYC Fair Chance Act, and the LA City Fair Chance Ordinance, and consistent with Canadian provincial and federal laws. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during any stage of the application process, please contact: [e-mail].

To learn more about how Chime collects and uses your personal information during the application process, please see Chime Applicant Privacy Notice.