Sr. Data Scientist

The Senior Data Scientist will develop and optimize card risk strategies across the customer lifecycle, applying data analytics, machine learning, and cross functional collaboration. This hybrid role based in Chicago, IL offers a salary range of USD 96,928 to 180,000 per year.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to reducing card losses by designing and refining risk strategies throughout the customer lifecycle.
• Inform strategic decisions through data analytics on card authorization and PayPal customer data.
• Develop innovative card risk solutions while collaborating with stakeholders in core payments, operations, risk, finance, and product owners.
• Develop and optimize PayPal risk strategies using knowledge of US and international financial markets, card networks, and customer spending behavior.
• Manage a portfolio of relationships to ensure payment solutions meet financial and timeline objectives.
• Leverage partnerships to advance PayPal's strategic business objectives.
• Prepare business cases supporting new risk policies, risk vendor integrations, and enhancements to PayPal risk infrastructure.
• Define risk requirements for product initiatives and prioritize these requirements with partner teams.
• Collaborate with other PayPal business and technology groups to ensure optimal deployment of payment solutions that satisfy customer needs and corporate objectives.

Requirements

• Master’s degree, or foreign equivalent, in Engineering, Statistics, or a closely related field, with at least two years of relevant experience.
• Experience analyzing and solving financial risk cases using regression and logistic methods, and Python.
• Experience in fraud and risk management for the end-to-end debit card lifecycle; ability to construct, implement, and fine-tune risk strategies across debit card platforms.
• Proficiency with A/B testing and statistical validation to refine fraud rules.
• Experience developing SQL queries on large-scale financial transaction databases.
• Experience building machine learning models using Python to predict transaction-level risk alerts and support fraud detection in payment systems.
• Industry experience in payments, e-commerce, or financial services.
• Experience collaborating with product, operations, and engineering teams in financial services to investigate and resolve technical problems.
• Experience building and visualizing risk metrics in Tableau and Looker dashboards to monitor approval trends, decline rates, and loss ratios, including setting up ring alerts to inform business decisions.

Technologies

• Python
• SQL
• Tableau
• Looker

Benefits

• Generous paid time off
• Healthcare coverage for you and your family
• Resources to create financial security
• Support for mental health
• PayPal's balanced hybrid work model: 3 days in the office for in-person collaboration and 2 days remote, providing the benefits and conveniences of both locations

Additional Responsibilities & Preferred Qualifications

EOE, including disability/veterans.