Financial Crimes Data Scientist

East West Bank is seeking a Financial Crimes Data Scientist to lead the creation, deployment, and ongoing refinement of AML and fraud-detection models. This onsite role in Pasadena, CA sits at the intersection of advanced analytics and regulatory compliance, leveraging machine learning, network analytics, and large-scale financial data to identify threats, improve detection accuracy, and reduce false positives. You will collaborate with Compliance, BSA/AML, Fraud, Investigations, and Technology teams to translate evolving risk signals into scalable detection strategies.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deploy internal detection models for AML, fraud, and other financial crime risks.
• Build risk-scoring, anomaly-detection, predictive, and network-analytics models using internal and external data sources.
• Design and optimize transaction monitoring scenarios and machine learning driven alert generation systems.
• Establish model deployment pipelines and production monitoring to sustain effectiveness and regulatory compliance.
• Perform feature engineering, tune models, and assess performance to improve precision, recall, and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate with Compliance, BSA/AML, Fraud, Investigations, and Technology teams to translate emerging risks into scalable detection strategies.
• Aim to reduce false positives while increasing identification of high-risk activity and suspicious behavior.
• Support governance, validation, documentation, and regulatory examinations of models.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Proficiency in statistical programming languages such as R and Python, along with query languages like SQL, Hive, and Pig; familiarity with Scala, Java, or C++ is a plus.
• Solid applied statistics background, including tests, clustering, distributions, regression, and maximum likelihood estimators.
• Strong mathematics foundation, particularly multivariable calculus and linear algebra, foundational to predictive modeling and optimization.
• Data wrangling skills to handle imperfect data sets.
• Experience with data visualization tools such as Tableau and Power BI.
• Experience in network or link analytics.
• Excellent communication skills for conveying findings to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong software engineering background.
• Hands-on experience with data science tools.
• Problem-solving aptitude.
• Analytical mindset with strong business sense.

Technologies

• Python
• SQL
• Spark
• Databricks
• Hive
• Pig
• Scala
• Java
• C++
• Tableau
• Power BI
• Azure
• AWS

Compensation

The base pay range for this position is USD 100,000.00/Yr. - USD 200,000.00/Yr. Exact offers will be determined based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and location.