Senior Fraud and Risk Engineer

Breeze; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary + equity

21 days PTO

Flexible benefits

Annual team retreat

Job summary

A fintech startup is seeking a Senior Fraud & Risk Engineer to design and implement fraud detection systems for their payment platform. The ideal candidate will have over 6 years of experience in fraud and risk engineering, preferably in fintech. Responsibilities include evolving the fraud risk engine and working collaboratively across teams. This position offers a competitive salary, equity, and flexible benefits within a hybrid working environment in New York City.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in fraud/risk engineering in fintech, payments, or related technology environments.
• Proven experience integrating fraud detection platforms.
• Experience in high-risk verticals such as gaming, crypto, or digital goods is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve Breeze’s fraud risk engine, integrating Sift ML scoring.
• Design and maintain scalable rules architecture.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and operations to ensure risk systems are integrated.

Skills

Fraud and risk engineering

Analytical skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Payments infrastructure knowledge

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

Tools

Sift

Sardine

Forter

Job description

Are you passionate about solving complex challenges in the fintech space? We’re looking for talented individuals to join our dynamic startup, backed by Sequoia Capital. We’re building the universal payment layer to unify all currencies—fiat and crypto—so businesses and consumers can transact seamlessly. If you're passionate about creating innovative solutions in a dynamic, fast‑paced environment, we want to talk to you.

Senior Fraud & Risk Engineer

As a Senior Fraud & Risk Engineer at Breeze, you will own and build the risk infrastructure that powers our payments platform. This is a highly strategic and hands‑on role where you will design, implement, and scale our fraud detection systems across a diverse and growing portfolio of merchants.

You’ll work across best‑in‑class tools like Sift and Sardine to create a multi‑merchant risk engine that balances approval rates with fraud prevention. From rules architecture to model tuning and chargeback analysis, you’ll be responsible for driving measurable improvements in fraud performance.

Preference for a colleague who can work hybrid in our NYC office.

What You’ll Do

• Own and evolve Breeze’s fraud risk engine, integrating Sift ML scoring and Sardine rules across all merchant categories
• Design and maintain a scalable rules architecture, including category‑level defaults, merchant‑specific overrides, velocity checks, and blocklists
• Continuously tune thresholds and features across merchant segments to optimize approval rates and minimize fraud
• Build feedback loops between manual review decisions, chargeback data, and model retraining to improve detection accuracy
• Partner closely with risk operations to translate real‑world fraud patterns into automated rules and systems
• Lead onboarding of new merchants into the risk stack, solving cold‑start challenges and calibrating risk for new verticals
• Monitor and improve key fraud KPIs, including approval rate, chargeback rate, and false positive rate
• Collaborate cross‑functionally with product, engineering, and operations to ensure risk systems are scalable and deeply integrated into the platform

What We’re Looking For

• Proven experience in fraud and risk engineering within payments, marketplaces, or acquiring processors (e.g., Stripe, Adyen, Square, Checkout.com, Worldpay)
• Hands‑on experience integrating third‑party fraud tools such as Sift, Forter, Featurespace, Feedzai, or Kount
• Experience operating multi‑merchant or marketplace fraud systems, including segmentation, shared models, and per‑merchant customization
• Strong understanding of rules engine design, including layered rules, velocity checks, and scalable rule management
• Deep operational fraud knowledge, including manual review workflows, chargeback handling, and false positive analysis
• Comfortable working cross‑functionally and translating operational insights into technical systems
• Highly analytical with a strong bias toward measurable outcomes and continuous improvement
• Adaptable, resourceful, and thrives in fast‑paced, ambiguous environments

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience in fraud/risk engineering in fintech, payments, or related technology environments
• Proven experience working with or integrating fraud detection platforms (e.g., Sift, Sardine, Forter, Feedzai, Kount)
• Experience supporting multi‑merchant or marketplace environments with complex risk needs
• Strong understanding of payments infrastructure, transaction flows, and fraud vectors
• Familiarity with PCI compliance, 3DS, and PSP‑level risk tooling is a plus
• Experience in high‑risk verticals such as gaming, crypto, or digital goods is a plus
• Ability to own systems end‑to‑end, from design through production and iteration
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

Our Culture

• Fast‑paced and dynamic – We move quickly and adapt to capture opportunities
• Builder’s mindset – We value ownership, initiative, and creativity
• Collaborative – Risk, product, and engineering operate as one unified team
• Continuous learning – We challenge each other and constantly improve

Why Join Us

• Competitive salary + equity
• 21 days PTO
• Flexible benefits: annual medical allowance, productivity allowance, gym/well‑being subsidy
• Annual team retreat
• Opportunity to build core risk infrastructure at a Sequoia‑backed company with strong momentum and runway

Apply now and help us build the future of payments at a global scale!