Senior Director, Risk Data Science

PayPal • San Jose, CA

7d • Hybrid

About The Position

PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. We operate a global, two-sided network at scale that connects hundreds of millions of merchants and consumers. We help merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online or in person. PayPal is more than a connection to third-party payment networks. We provide proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on our platform on behalf of our customers. We offer our customers the flexibility to use their accounts to purchase and receive payments for goods and services, as well as the ability to transfer and withdraw funds. We enable consumers to exchange funds more safely with merchants using a variety of funding sources, which may include a bank account, a PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products, a credit card, a debit card, certain cryptocurrencies, or other stored value products such as gift cards, and eligible credit card rewards. Our PayPal, Venmo, and Xoom products also make it safer and simpler for friends and family to transfer funds to each other. We offer merchants an end-to-end payments solution that provides authorization and settlement capabilities, as well as instant access to funds and payouts. We also help merchants connect with their customers, process exchanges and returns, and manage risk. We enable consumers to engage in cross-border shopping and merchants to extend their global reach while reducing the complexity and friction involved in enabling cross-border trade. Our beliefs are the foundation for how we conduct business every day. We live each day guided by our core values of Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness. Together, our values ensure that we work together as one global team with our customers at the center of everything we do – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.
Job Summary: The Opportunity: Shaping the Future of Trust We are seeking a visionary Senior Director of Risk Data Science to architect and lead the next generation of our fraud prevention capabilities. This is not a standard data science role; it is a high-visibility leadership position that will build and lead a team of ~75 data scientists. This Senior Director will report directly to our VP of Risk Data Science and AI, who in turn reports to our SVP of Global Fraud Prevention. In this role, you will be the technical conscience and strategic driver for a team that processes billions of transactions. You will lead the charge in embedding deep learning, graph neural networks (GNNs), and large, complex language models into the very fabric of our real-time decisioning engines. You will own the "brain" that protects our customers from increasingly sophisticated threats—spanning identity theft, synthetic fraud, account takeovers, and scams—before they happen.

Requirements

• 12+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 5 years of experience leading others
• Fraud Domain Expertise: Extensive, hands-on experience building and managing fraud prevention and / or fraud detection models using large-scale data and advanced ML and AI techniques
• 18+ Years of Technical Experience: Proven track record of building and mentoring expert AI/ML teams that consistently deliver innovative solutions, resulting in measurable business impact and sustained competitive advantage
• 5+ Years of Executive Leadership: Experience managing large, multi-layered data science teams (managing managers) and influencing VP/C-level stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

• Fintech & Payments DNA: Deep familiarity with the payments ecosystem (issuing, acquiring, gateways, ACH/Rails) and the unique adversarial nature of financial fraud.
• Advanced Degree: Ph.D. in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, Operations Research, or a related quantitative field is highly preferred.
• Applied AI Scale: Experience deploying GNNs or Transformer-based models in a high-throughput, low latency production environment (not just offline research).
• Transformation Experience: A track record of modernizing legacy model stacks (e.g., moving from logistic regression/forests to Deep Learning/AI) in a large enterprise.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the strategic vision for machine learning initiatives at the organizational level.
• Lead the development and optimization of state-of-the-art machine learning models.
• Oversee the preprocessing and analysis of large datasets.
• Deploy and maintain ML solutions in production environments.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate ML models into products and services.
• Monitor and evaluate the performance of deployed models, making necessary adjustments.
• Mentor and guide junior engineers and data scientists.
• Publish research findings and contribute to industry discussions.
• Represent the company at conferences and external engagements.
• Influence the direction of the company's AI/ML strategy and contribute to long-term planning.
• Partner with the VP of Risk Data Science & AI to define and execute the long-term AI/ML roadmap for Global Fraud Prevention, moving beyond iterative improvements to transformative leaps in detection capability.
• Champion the adoption of advanced methodologies—specifically Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, and GenAI-driven anomaly detection—to identify bad actors within our complex ecosystem of two-sided networks.
• Spearhead innovations and transformations for modeling algorithms, technical infrastructure, and modeling platforms to help propel business forward with the power of ML/AI
• Partner closely with Global Fraud Prevention leadership to align data science initiatives with PayPal’s broader "AI-First" corporate strategy.
• End-to-End Ownership: Oversee the full lifecycle of mission-critical fraud models: from ideation and feature engineering (leveraging thousands of signals) to real-time production deployment and automated retraining loops.
• Vector-Specific Mastery: Own the decisioning engines for diverse fraud vectors including Identity & Onboarding, Authentication & Login, Payment Abuse, Social Engineering Scams, and regulatory compliance.
• Scale & Speed: Ensure all ML solutions are robust enough to handle PayPal’s massive scale (billions of daily events) and fast enough to deliver friction-free experiences for legitimate users.
• Build, mentor, and inspire a high-performing global team of Principal Data Scientists and Managers. Foster a culture of rigorous scientific inquiry, rapid experimentation, and intellectual honesty.
• Break down silos between Data Science, Engineering, and Product. Drive the "Model-as-Product" mindset where risk engines are treated as core assets.
• Represent PayPal’s technical prowess at top-tier industry conferences (e.g., Money20/20) and contribute to the broader scientific community through research publications.

Benefits

• This role is also eligible for a range of benefits which may include, medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, parental and family leave, 401(k) savings plan, paid time off, and other benefits.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees