Data Scientist, Fraud & Risk

The Wealthfront Data Science Team utilizes our rich financial and behavioral data to influence key product and marketing decisions, as well as to safeguard our client’s information and assets. The team draws from backgrounds in Computer Science, Natural Sciences, Statistics, Operations Research and Econometrics.

The Data Scientist in this role will be primarily embedded within Wealthfront’s Fraud and Risk (F&R) team. All assets and clients entering in or exiting out of Wealthfront pass through F&R systems and checks. As such, F&R Engineers and Data Scientists have the dual responsibility of safeguarding our clients’ assets while maintaining a delightful experience for regular clients. 

Potential project areas for this role include (but are not limited to) monitoring client signup flow, tagging anomalous financial transactions, automated classification of normal and fraudulent financial behaviors and helping evaluate security implications of product initiatives. 

The F&R team relies heavily on production machine learning (ML) models to automate fraud detection. We constantly update our models and develop new ones to address the fast-evolving financial fraud landscape. The key desired traits for a Data Scientist in this role are an advanced ability to translate security-related problems into mathematical language, lead research and own the production deployment. An ideal candidate will also be able to explain technical choices and trade-offs to broad audiences in a simple language. Above all, we want candidates who possess a “security mindset” – a drive to be constantly aware of the potential for threats and being proactive in safeguarding our clients’ information and assets.

• Translate known or newly discovered security-related scenarios into mathematical problem statements.
• Formulate project plans with clear rationale, candidate approaches and milestones.
• Quantify performance of fraud detection models using appropriate metrics (accuracy, precision, recall) before and after production deployment. 
• Employ a high degree of mathematical rigor and best practices for software development.
• Work with F&R leadership to propose and implement new security enhancements for our products. 
• Work with cross functional stakeholders to evaluate security implications for proposed new products or features.
• Work with Data platform teams to procure required (but unavailable) data.
• Explain technical choices, model limitations and trade-offs in a cross functional risk evaluation forums.
• Enhance overall Data Science team execution through hands-on help, design feedback and peer review.

• A Masters or a PhD degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Operations Research, or Natural Sciences with 4+ years of prior experience in a Data Science role. Exceptions to these requirements may be considered on a case-by-case basis.  
• Prior experience in financial fraud detection and prevention is preferred, but not required.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills and a record of partnering across organizations to sharpen project requirements. Sometimes this includes re-framing the original request to solve a more general problem with similar effort. 
• Hands-on mathematical and software engineering skills to execute on complex projects.
• Proficiency in Python and SQL.
• An understanding of the concept of “proportional investment” in approaching Data Science problems.
• Desire and ability to mentor junior Data Scientists within the team by exemplifying math, engineering and technical communication skills.

Estimated annual salary range: $165,000 - $185,000 USD plus equity and a discretionary bonus.

Benefits include medical, vision, dental, 401K plan, generous time off, parental leave, wellness reimbursements, professional development, employee investing discount, and more!

About Wealthfront

Wealthfront started with the ambition to transform the investment advisory business, with the goal to unlock access to high quality investment advice for millions who were underserved by the traditional institutions. We built one of the first automated investment products that allows you to invest in a personalized portfolio of thousands of companies in seconds for a remarkably low fee. We then expanded. We now work with partner banks to offer exceptional banking features through a Wealthfront Brokerage Cash Account, which makes it remarkably easy for people to automate their finances end-to-end and eliminated the hassle of money management, all of which resulted in attracting more than $50 billion of our client’s hard earned money, pioneering the robo-advisor category and transforming the broader industry. And yet, we have a long way to go to achieve our mission to build a financial system that favors people, not institutions. 

Wealthfront’s vision is to make it delightfully easy to build long-term wealth on your own terms. This vision is more relevant than ever because millions more people are getting into the market early and investing their hard earned savings in a handful of stocks. While this is a great way to start, it is inconsistent with building long-term wealth. We want to empower young investors to expand their horizon, and easily explore and execute on a wider range of investing strategies, make informed investment decisions that are consistent with their values and beliefs while also making it effortless to grow and compound their savings exponentially in a way that’s transformational to their lives and their long-term future.

For more information please visit www.wealthfront.com.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

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