Lead Risk Data Scientist & ML Engineer

Global Payment Holding Company is building and scaling detection intelligence to support fraud, credit, and AML risk operations in a regulated payments environment. In this onsite role in Alpharetta, GA, you will lead the end-to-end lifecycle of risk machine learning models and design AI-assisted, LLM and agentic workflows that help analysts make better decisions using governed, explainable systems.

What you’ll do

• Own the end-to-end delivery of detection models and AI-assisted workflows that support fraud, credit, and AML risk operations.
• Drive model performance across the full lifecycle, including design, validation, production deployment, and continuous optimization.
• Translate regulatory requirements and operational needs into detection strategies and technical execution plans.
• Ensure models are explainable, auditable, and aligned with regulatory expectations.
• Lead model performance monitoring and continuous refinement using production data and investigation outcomes.
• Design and oversee scalable batch and real-time data pipelines for model development and serving.
• Design and deploy AI-assisted analyst workflows using LLMs and agentic frameworks, including pilot and proof-of-concept deployments.
• Guide the development of agent-based systems that augment human decision-making in risk operations.
• Define and refine detection strategies based on emerging fraud patterns and regulatory requirements.
• Maintain and monitor key performance metrics including precision, recall, false positives, and alert quality.
• Influence tradeoff decisions between detection coverage, operational cost, and false positive rates.
• Define governance standards for model development, validation, documentation, and change management.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory expectations including BSA/AML, OFAC, FinCEN, and SR 11-7.
• Partner with Model Risk Management and Compliance to support validation and regulatory reviews.
• Serve as a primary technical partner to Fraud Operations, Compliance, and Technology teams.
• Lead cross-functional project teams from conception through deployment for ML model and AI workflow development, setting priorities, performance expectations, and delivery accountability.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to data scientists and engineers working on risk initiatives.
• Build and strengthen team capabilities across detection modeling, data engineering, and AI/agentic systems.

What you bring

• 7+ years in data science, machine learning, or MLOps.
• Proven experience developing, deploying, and maintaining detection models (fraud, AML, or credit risk) in production.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted workflows, LLMs, and agentic frameworks, including pilot-stage deployments.
• Experience in regulated financial services or fintech environments is preferred.
• Exposure to model risk management frameworks and regulatory interactions, including SR 11-7.
• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL.
• MLOps experience including Git, GitHub Actions, CI/CD practices, model monitoring, retraining pipelines, and infrastructure automation.
• Hands-on experience with data science platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, and AWS SageMaker.
• AWS ecosystem expertise including SageMaker, Glue, Lambda, and EventBridge.
• Familiarity with LLM and agentic frameworks, including foundational models (for example, Claude, GPT) and orchestration tools (for example, AWS AgentCore, LangChain).
• Understanding of fraud typologies, AML transaction monitoring methodologies, and detection system design.
• Resourceful and versatile, comfortable operating in a small, fast-moving team environment and delivering with constrained resources.
• Strong technical depth paired with collaborative leadership, guiding teams through ambiguity and turning strategy into actionable delivery.
• Comfort working across Risk, Compliance, and Technology functions.

Tools and technologies

• Python, SQL, Git, GitHub Actions, CI/CD
• Databricks, Snowflake
• AWS SageMaker, Glue, Lambda, EventBridge
• Claude, GPT
• AWS AgentCore, LangChain

Location: Alpharetta, GA (onsite)

Minimum experience: 7 years