Senior Data Scientist, Ads Integrity

EngineersOfAI; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Reddit is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to lead ads fraud detection and scaled enforcement within Safety. You will partner with Ads Product, Engineering, Machine Learning, Operations, Policy, Legal, and fellow Safety data scientists to identify emerging ads fraud, define rigorous measurement and evaluation standards, and turn investigations into durable signals, models, rules, and enforcement pipelines.

This greenfield space offers high ownership, cross-functional impact, and opportunities to

Qualifications

• Relevant experience in Data Science, Applied Science, or a related quantitative role, preferably in ads fraud, financial fraud, or account risk, Trust & Safety, platform integrity, or enforcement engineering.
• Ph.D. or M.S. degree in Statistics, Economics, Computer Science, Applied

Responsibilities

• Lead the measurement and detection strategy for ads fraud by defining fraud taxonomies, labels, sampling plans, metrics, and evaluation frameworks that make performance measurable and defensible.
• Analyze large, complex datasets and networks of behavior to uncover emerging fraud patterns, size their impact, identify root causes, and translate findings into detection and enforcement requirements.
• Design and develop scalable ads fraud detection and enforcement pipelines in partnership with Engineering and Machine Learning, including feature generation, rules and models, near-real-time scoring, actioning, review feedback loops, and observability.
• Own the full detection lifecycle: backtesting, threshold calibration, offline and online evaluation, launch validation, experimentation, monitoring, drift detection, incident response, rollback, and retirement.
• Build and maintain statistical, machine learning, and GenAI-enabled models or prototypes that improve fraud detection, risk identification, investigator efficiency, and enforcement quality.
• Balance fraud loss, platform and advertiser risk, customer experience, false-positive costs, operational capacity, and business goals when recommending detection thresholds and enforcement strategies.
• Partner across Ads and Safety to shape strategy and roadmaps, strengthen data foundations, close policy and enforcement gaps, and ensure solutions meet governance and compliance standards.
• Translate complex analyses into clear narratives and actionable recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders, including senior leaders, and mentor other data scientists and analysts.

Skills

Data science experience

Fraud risk domain

Education

Ph.D. or MS in Statistics, Economics, CS, Applied

Job description

Reddit is a community of communities. It’s built on shared interests, passion, and trust, and is home to the most open and authentic conversations on the internet. Every day, Reddit users submit, vote, and comment on the topics they care most about. With 100,000+ active communities and approximately 130 million daily active unique visitors, Reddit is one of the internet’s largest sources of information. For more information, visit www.redditinc.com.

Reddit is continuing to grow our teams with the best talent. This role is completely remote friendly within the United States. If you happen to live close to one of our physical office locations (San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City & Chicago) our doors are open for you to come into the office as often as you'd like.

Reddit is poised to innovate and grow like never before, and Safety is a critical accelerant of that growth. The Safety org is Reddit’s central Trust & Safety organization, protecting users from bad experiences by stopping harmful content, behaviors, and abuse across the platform. We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist to lead ads fraud detection and scaled enforcement within Safety. You will partner closely with Ads Product, Engineering, Machine Learning, Operations, Policy, Legal, and fellow Safety data scientists to identify emerging ads fraud, define rigorous measurement and evaluation standards, and turn investigations into durable signals, models, rules, and enforcement pipelines. This is a high-impact role with exceptional opportunity for ownership and growth: as an early leader in a greenfield space, you will help define the strategy, shape cross-functional roadmaps, build foundational capabilities, and expand your scope as Reddit’s ads integrity program matures.

Responsibilities

• Lead the measurement and detection strategy for ads fraud by defining fraud taxonomies, labels, sampling plans, metrics, and evaluation frameworks that make performance measurable and defensible.
• Analyze large, complex datasets and networks of behavior to uncover emerging fraud patterns, size their impact, identify root causes, and translate findings into detection and enforcement requirements.
• Design and develop scalable ads fraud detection and enforcement pipelines in partnership with Engineering and Machine Learning, including feature generation, rules and models, near-real-time scoring, actioning, review feedback loops, and observability.
• Own the full detection lifecycle: backtesting, threshold calibration, offline and online evaluation, launch validation, experimentation, monitoring, drift detection, incident response, rollback, and retirement.
• Build and maintain statistical, machine learning, and GenAI-enabled models or prototypes that improve fraud detection, risk identification, investigator efficiency, and enforcement quality.
• Balance fraud loss, platform and advertiser risk, customer experience, false-positive costs, operational capacity, and business goals when recommending detection thresholds and enforcement strategies.
• Partner across Ads and Safety to shape strategy and roadmaps, strengthen data foundations, close policy and enforcement gaps, and ensure solutions meet governance and compliance standards.
• Translate complex analyses into clear narratives and actionable recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders, including senior leaders, and mentor other data scientists and analysts.

Qualifications

• Relevant experience in Data Science, Applied Science, or a related quantitative role, preferably in ads fraud, financial fraud, or account risk, Trust & Safety, platform integrity, or enforcement engineering.
• Ph.D. or M.S. degree in Statistics, Economics, Computer Science, Applied