Principal Data Scientist

About the role

We're looking for talented professionals to join us in bringing smart money management and payment solutions to everyone's fingertips.

This position is classified as structured hybrid, with an expectation of three (3) days per week working in the office and flexibility to work remotely on the remaining days. On-site expectations may evolve over time to support business needs, with clear communication provided in advance.

Location Requirement

This position is open only to candidates who currently reside in one of the following approved locations:

Los Angeles, CA (West LA)

Job Summary

The Fraud Data Scientist (P5) will be responsible for using data to detect fraud and reduce fraud losses across the organization by data mining, testing, analyzing, and transforming data into actionable insights. You will leverage statistical analysis to design and integrate models that support or automate decision making throughout the business.

At the P5 level, you will lead the fraud analytics agenda, serve as a subject matter expert, and work closely with Operations partners - including Customer Experience & Service (CES), BSA/AML Operations, and Dispute Operations - to ensure that fraud strategy directly improves customer outcomes and reduces operational friction.

You might be the right match for this role if

You are a self-starter who delivers high-quality work within tight deadlines. You have a passion for data and for translating insights into actions that protect customers and the business. You write excellent SQL, love working with analytic tools, and use technical skills and creative approaches to solve unique problems.

You have the ability to learn the overall business and financial operations to provide relevant metrics and recommendations. You can lead and work effectively with cross-functional teams - including Operations, CES, and BSA/AML - and you understand that great fraud strategy must also be great customer experience strategy.

Key Responsibilities

• Leading fraud prevention efforts by using data to analyze, design, modify, document, and implement rules to address both fraud threats and unusual and suspicious activity.
• Proactively analyzing all available data to identify emerging fraud trends and translating those findings into strategic recommendations for cross-functional partners.
• Designing, developing, and programming methods, processes, and systems to consolidate and analyze unstructured, diverse "big data" sources to generate actionable insights and solutions for customer service and product enhancement.
• Partnering closely with Customer Experience & Service (CES), BSA/AML Operations, and Dispute Operations to align fraud detection strategies with operational realities - surfacing signals from frontline case volumes, complaint trends, and dispute inflows to drive sharper rule tuning and improve customer resolution experiences.
• Working with CES leadership to identify patterns in customer-reported friction (unnecessary declines, false positives, blocked legitimate transactions) and translating those signals into rule or model optimization opportunities that protect customers without degrading their experience.
• Coordinating with BSA/AML Operations to ensure fraud analytics outputs support compliant, consistent cross-functional responses to emerging threats, and that fraud signals are appropriately shared to inform suspicious activity review workflows.
• Interacting with product and service teams to identify questions and issues for data analysis and experiments, and driving those experiments to completion.
• Developing and coding software programs, algorithms, and automated processes to cleanse, integrate, and evaluate large datasets from multiple disparate sources.
• Identifying meaningful insights from large data and metadata sources; interpreting and effectively communicating findings to product, service, operations, and business leaders.
• Implementing models with technology and data engineers on various platforms.
• Using data visualization programs, tools, and techniques to generate dashboards, reports, and presentations that aid in data storytelling and interpretation of trends and patterns of business importance.
• Mentoring junior data scientists and contributing to the broader development of the fraud analytics practice.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years of data science or data analysis experience.
• Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field.
• Strong expertise in programming languages such as SQL, SAS, Python, or equivalent.
• Strong experience with customer segmentation, root cause/variance analysis, and extrapolation.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with operational teams (CES, BSA/AML, Disputes, or equivalent) to translate data insights into workflow and customer experience improvements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Fraud industry experience in financial services, fintech, payments, or banking.
• Experience in a fraud rule / strategy role with direct ownership of platform configuration or rule governance.
• Experience with Falcon, PRM, VRM, SecurLOCK, Mastercard Connect, or other fraud rule platforms.
• Experience with SageMaker or SAS for model development and deployment.
• Familiarity with dispute operations, BSA/AML compliance workflows, customer operations, or complaint management environments.
• Experience mentoring or leading analysts in a matrixed or cross-functional environment.

Ability to meet the location requirement outlined above

Position Type

Regular

Pay Range

The targeted base salary for this position is $138,800 to $208,100 per year. The final compensation will be determined by a number of factors such as qualifications, expertise, and the candidate's geographical location.

Work Authorization Requirement

At Green Dot Corporation, we value diversity and strive for fair and inclusive hiring practices. However, we are currently unable to offer visa sponsorship. All applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States at the time of application and throughout the duration of employment, without the need for current or future sponsorship.

Important Notice on Application Accuracy

• We value integrity in our hiring process.
• Please ensure that all information provided in your resume and application is accurate and authentic.
• Submissions found to be fraudulent or misleading will result in disqualification from consideration, and any offers extended may be rescinded.