Sr Data Scientist

PayPal•Chicago, IL

4d•$142,210 - $221,500•Hybrid

About The Position

PayPal, Inc. seeks Sr Data Scientist in Chicago, IL. This role involves managing the process to create large-scale data science strategies to combat fraud and balance risk, user experience, and financial performance. The position owns the full lifecycle of a solution, from research to production, and oversees platform performance, evaluating false positives and defining thresholds. The Sr Data Scientist will lead the translation of team actions into financial business impact, create and guide the team in developing automatic auxiliaries to enhance efficiency, and provide ongoing mentoring and training to team members on leveraging Device Intelligence capabilities for safer user experiences. The role also includes evaluating and leveraging vendors for complementary bot mitigation solutions, managing a global team of data scientists, devising work plans, and providing mentorship to both organic and external team members. The Sr Data Scientist will serve as a key stakeholder on fraud incident mitigation, lead the implementation and research of novel cyber-security technologies into bot mitigation strategies, and evaluate the incremental benefits of bot-mitigation vendors. Partial telecommuting is permitted from within a commutable distance.

Requirements

Master’s degree, or foreign equivalent, in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Cybersecurity, or a closely related field plus two years of experience in the job offered or a related occupation.
OR Bachelor’s degree, or foreign equivalent, in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Cybersecurity, or a closely related field plus five years of experience in the job offered or a related occupation.
Large-scale Fraud Prevention – Experience with large-scale fraud modus operandi and effective mitigation strategies, with emphasis on Customer identity abuses (2 years).
User Identity Risk – Experience with different aspects of Identity management and the challenges of balancing Risk with positive user experience (2 years).
Device Data Collection – Experience in collecting data and attributes from devices via web and mobile applications, its limitations and challenges (2 years).
Automation, Scripting, and Bot Detection – Experience developing and implementing strategies to identify and mitigate automated, bot-driven, or scripted activity (2 years).
CAPTCHA – Experience leveraging and evaluating different CAPTCHA vendors to prevent automated abuse using Google reCAPTCHA v2/v3, along with experience in limitations and manipulation detection (2 years).
Data Analytics using SQL– Experience analyzing and interpreting complex datasets to extract actionable insights and support business decision-making, along with experience in writing and optimizing complex SQL queries (2 years).
Coding – Coding experience in large enterprise environments, including working with JSON objects (2 years).
Network Protocols & Security Practices – Solid understanding of HTTP methods and TLS fingerprinting (2 years).
BigQuery & Looker – Experience building dashboards and reports in Looker for data visualization (1 year).
Log Analysis – Experience leveraging enterprise logging platforms such as Splunk, CAL and/or event tracking (1 year).

Responsibilities

Manage the process to create large-scale data science strategies to combat fraud and balance risk, user experience, and financial performance.
Own the full lifecycle of a solution, from the research phase to production.
Oversee and monitor platform performance in production, evaluating false positives and defining thresholds for refinement.
Lead the process of translating the team’s actions into financial business impact.
Create and guide team in creating automatic auxiliaries, enhancing efficiency towards calculation/reporting milestones.
Provide ongoing mentoring and training sessions to team members ensuring they leverage Device Intelligence capabilities effectively for safer user experiences across various domains.
Evaluate and leverage vendors as complementary bot mitigation solutions.
Manage a global team of data scientists, devise the teams’ workplans, and provide ongoing mentorship and guidance to organic and external team members for effective bot mitigation.
Serve as a dominant stakeholder on fraud incidents mitigation, lead the implementation and participate in the research of novel cyber-security technologies into bot mitigation strategies, and evaluate the incremental benefits of bot-mitigation vendors.