Fraud and Abuse Operations Lead - Security

We believe that the way people interact with their finances will drastically improve in the next few years. We’re dedicated to empowering this transformation by building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to create their own products. Plaid powers the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life. We work with thousands of companies like Venmo, SoFi, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Plaid’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Washington D.C., London and Amsterdam.

We are the first line of defence against fraud and abuse on the Plaid platform. Our mission is to ensure the safety and integrity of our platform for consumers and customers. We are responsible for responding to fraud and abuse events, investigating claims, and triaging incidents. We also partner with product and engineering teams to inform and improve fraud mitigation strategies. 

You will own the abuse on-call rotation and respond to fraud and abuse events on the platform. You will investigate claims of fraud and abuse from multiple sources (alerts from Plaid defences, inbound from Data Partners, Customers, and End-users). You will triage material fraud and abuse events as internal incidents (SEVs), and drive them towards resolution. You will also be the operational partner to the Consumer Risk product and engineering teams, and to cross-functional product teams building fraud mitigation solutions to inform their roadmaps.

• Safeguard Plaid's Platform: Take ownership of the abuse on-call rotation, directly protecting our users and customers by swiftly and effectively responding to and resolving fraud and abuse events. Your timely actions will be instrumental in maintaining trust and security.
• Drive Investigations and Mitigate Risks: Conduct thorough investigations into fraud and abuse claims from diverse sources. Your findings will inform crucial decisions and strategies, directly impacting Plaid's ability to prevent future incidents and minimize financial losses.
• Lead Incident Response: Triage and manage high-priority fraud and abuse events as internal incidents (SEVs), collaborating across teams to drive resolution. Your leadership in these situations will minimize disruption and protect Plaid's reputation.
• Shape Product Strategy: Act as the key operational partner to Consumer Risk and other product teams, providing vital insights and expertise. Your contributions will directly influence the development of effective fraud mitigation solutions, strengthening Plaid's defences and shaping the future of our products.

• Must Haves:

• Experience triaging fraud or related incidents, with tight containment deadlines.
• Experience managing escalations and making informed trade-off decisions with multiple stakeholders.
• Ability to coordinate and communicate effectively with internal Legal, Compliance, Comms and other risk management teams during incident triage.
• A battle-tested mental model for balancing fraud mitigation vs. conversion, and the ability to calibrate and apply this mental model in the context of Plaid’s business objectives under pressure.

• Deep knowledge about fraud typologies–account takeover, different types of payments fraud, ACH fraud, chargebacks, kiting, rewards harvesting, etc.
• Deep context about the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by bad actors to commit different types of fraud on the web.
• Deep context about common mitigation strategies for the same, and informed opinions about their relative pros and cons.

• Strong data analysis skills using common analysis and manipulation tools.
• Strong SQL skills for querying data sets and quickly building reports.
• Ability to identify anomalies and fraudulent patterns in logs and other data sets (transactions data, request data, etc.).

• Experience building and iteratively maturing operational teams (specifically in fraud, abuse, security, incident response space).
• Experience maturing an operational control and building resilience.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

• Familiarity with machine learning models for fraud detection.

Our mission at Plaid is to unlock financial freedom for everyone. To support that mission, we seek to build a diverse team of driven individuals who care deeply about making the financial ecosystem more equitable. We recognize that strong qualifications can come from both prior work experiences and lived experiences. We encourage you to apply to a role even if your experience doesn't fully match the job description. We are always looking for team members that will bring something unique to Plaid!

Plaid is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion or religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, military or veteran status, disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Plaid is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance with your application or interviews due to a disability, please let us know at accommodations@plaid.com.

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