Senior Data Scientist, Payment Intelligence

GoCardless

About us GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking.  GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually, across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud. And, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, we help our customers make faster, more informed decisions. We are headquartered in the UK with offices in London and Leeds, and additional locations in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal and the United States. At GoCardless, we're all about supporting you! We’re committed to making our hiring process inclusive and accessible. If you need extra support or adjustments, reach out to your Talent Partner — we’re here to help!  And remember: we don’t expect you to meet every single requirement. If you’re excited by this role, we encourage you to apply! THE ROLE Data sits at the core of our mission. We leverage bank account data to deliver high-value, intelligent payment solutions for our customers, from enhancing payment success rates to driving payer fraud prevention. As a Data Science Manager within our Payment Intelligence team, you’ll partner with Software Engineers, Product Managers, and Designers to turn big ideas into reality. You’ll own the full lifecycle of our algorithms, shaping everything from the initial concept to production-ready code that powers our global payment network. At GoCardless, our stack is centered around Google Cloud Platform and Vertex AI, providing a high-performance environment for innovation. Our Data Scientists operate at the intersection of Python, SQL, and BigQuery to build and deploy high-performance models at scale. WHAT YOU’LL DO * Manage and mentor a high-performing team of Data Scientists, fostering a culture of technical excellence and supporting their long-term career development. * Oversee the end-to-end lifecycle of mission-critical ML models that power real-time payment decisions. * Shape the strategic roadmap for the Payment Intelligence space, translating complex data challenges into actionable, high-impact goals. * Drive cross-functional impact by working closely across disciplines to build end-to-end technical solutions, from concept to production. * Influence Senior Leadership by acting as the bridge between technical complexity and business value, communicating ML strategy to senior stakeholders. WHAT EXCITES YOU * Driving cutting-edge advancements in Data, AI, and Machine Learning within the payments space with a multidisciplinary team. * Mentoring a high-performing team and fostering a culture of technical excellence. * Solving the complex, real-time challenges of fraud prevention and payment optimisation at scale. * Building production-grade ML models on a streamlined GCP and Vertex AI stack to drive fintech innovation. WHAT EXCITES US * 2+ years managing Data Scientists within complex, high-stakes domains. * A hands-on leader comfortable diving into the codebase. You bring strong expertise in Python and SQL to oversee the full lifecycle of a model, from initial prototype to robust production deployment. * A decisive collaborator who can navigate technical trade-offs and translate complex ML concepts for cross-functional stakeholders and leadership. * Familiarity with complex data environments and model architectures, such as deep learning (experience in Fintech, Fraud Prevention, or Payments is a big plus). Base salary range: €64,000 - €96,000 Base salary ranges are based on role, job level, location, and market data.  Please note that whilst we strive to offer competitive compensation, our approach is to pay between the minimum and the mid-point of the pay range until performance can be assessed in role. Offers will take into account level of experience, interview assessment, budgets and parity between you and fellow employees at GoCardless doing similar work. (SOME OF) THE GOOD STUFF * Wellbeing - stay healthy with dedicated support and medical cover * Work away scheme - gives you the option to work away from your country of residence for up to 90 days in any 12 month period * Adaptive Working - allows you to work flexibly, around your lifestyle * Equity - all permanently employed GCs get equity to help you make a valuable contribution * Parental leave - to suit everyone embarking on life's great adventure * Learning Budget - lead your own development with an annual learning budget * Time off - generous holiday allowance, + 3 annual volunteer days, + 4 annual business-wide wellness days (‘GC Fridays’) LIFE AT GOCARDLESS   We're an organisation defined by our values; We start with why before we begin any project, to ensure it’s aligned with our mission. We act with integrity, always. We care deeply about what we do and we know it's essential that we be humble whilst we do it. Working this way creates the GC magic- the reason we all love showing up to work.  DIVERSITY & INCLUSION As of April 2025, we had 806 employees (GeeCees) globally, with 524 based in the UK, 163 based in Latvia and 119 across our other offices. To ensure that we're representative of the world around us - and to be able to review relevant benchmarks - we ask GeeCees to voluntarily disclose diversity data. This year, the proportion of GeeCees providing data increased to 88% (up from 79% in 2024). With regards to diversity within GoCardless, we can see GeeCees identifying as: Asian, Black, Mixed or Other — 25%  Neurodiverse — 9%  LGBTQIA+ — 9%  Disabled — 1%  Average age — 33 Female — 45% Male —  55%  We’re rooting for you during your application and GoCardless aims to provide reasonable adjustments to make our recruitment process as remarkable and accessible as we can. Please speak to your Talent Partner if you need extra support. If you want to learn more, you can read about our Employee Resource Groups and objectives here Sustainability We’re committed to reducing our impact on the environment, leaving a more sustainable world for future generations. Check out our sustainability action plan here. Find out more about Life at GoCardless via Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

GoCardless

About us GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking.  GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually, across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud. And, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, we help our customers make faster, more informed decisions. We are headquartered in the UK with offices in London and Leeds, and additional locations in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal and the United States. At GoCardless, we're all about supporting you! We’re committed to making our hiring process inclusive and accessible. If you need extra support or adjustments, reach out to your Talent Partner — we’re here to help!  And remember: we don’t expect you to meet every single requirement. If you’re excited by this role, we encourage you to apply! PAYMENT INTELLIGENCE Our mission is to make GoCardless the best way to pay and be paid. Our ambition is to dramatically improve payment performance and safeguard our customers from bad outcomes like payment fraud and failures. You will help find data opportunities and areas to improve our payment intelligence products. You should be comfortable with large data sets, customer data, and machine learning principles. You’ll work alongside Product Managers, Engineers and Data Scientists in our two core Payment Intelligence teams to provide critical insights and help drive product direction. Our existing Payment Intelligence Products are already one of the key reasons why customers choose GoCardless. These include Protect+, which defends customers from fraud, and Success+, which helps customers intelligently recover failed payments. You will need to own our understanding of these products and identify insights and opportunities to help us develop new intelligent features.   WHAT YOU'LL DO At GoCardless analytics is at the core of everything we do and drives business performance through data insight. You will play a critical role partnering closely with stakeholders across the business (including product, operations, marketing, and commercial teams) in order to deliver actionable insights to influence decisions at every level of the organisation. The role is focussed on identifying value and driving change throughout the business derived from insights. Your insights will be turned into actions that will help drive the future of GoCardless. You will act as the bridge between the data, technical and business stakeholders informing strategic plans and will own and evolve a suite of reports designed to give a wide range of stakeholders access insights.  * Own and iterate on experiments to generate user insight and drive business metrics, allowing the team to quickly take action on business opportunities. * Define how we quantitatively evaluate success, setting KPIs, designing tracking to measure what really matters, delving into the leading indicators of user behaviour * Influence the organisation to increase Product Data coverage and implement user tracking best practices - acting as a mentor to guide other members of the organisation to become data driven * Build models of user-segmentation, customer lifetime value etc in order to inform strategic product & commercial decisions * Continuously innovate on the practices and the tools we rely on to deliver the right insights at the right decision points (A/B Testing, Analysis (SQL), Visualisation (Looker), Tracking (Amplitude), Automation (Python), AI (Gemini)   WHAT EXCITES YOU * Become a strategic partner and advisor for the business: you like to proactively seek out gaps in our product capabilities, suggest areas of improvement based on tangible data, as well as owning processes to run and improve testing from the tracking point of view when developing new features.  * Act as a catalyst for change across the organization, driving the evolution of our data analytics standards, internal processes, and overall product data strategy to ensure scalability and operational excellence. * Translate complex technical findings into compelling, high-impact narratives. You will bridge the gap between technical data and commercial strategy, influencing product roadmaps and executive decision-making across the entire organization. * Stay current with AI and data trends to solve real-world problems. You like to leverage these technologies to enhance the payment experience, as well as to optimize data analysis, and deliver high-impact insights and strategic recommendations across the business. * Unlocking new layers of payment performance, from uncovering new fraud vectors to maximizing success rates * Serve as a cross-functional mentor, championing a data-driven mindset and elevating the analytical capabilities of team members throughout the company.   WHAT EXCITES US * You have a background working in similar fast paced product-driven teams and are great at communicating insights to a range of audiences, including senior stakeholders, to drive data-informed product decisions * You are a self-starter, focused on results, with a demonstrated background in using analytics to drive the understanding, growth, and success of a product * You have extensive experience with data visualisation tools mentioned above and develop compelling visualisations which influence decision making and business understanding * You have advanced SQL skills and intermediate Python skills & have experience leveraging AI capabilities to enhance data analysis, automate tasks, and improve decision-making processes * You have a background working in similar fast paced teams and are great at communicating insights to a range of audiences, including senior stakeholders, to drive data-informed decisions. * You are solution-oriented and able to own projects from start to finish. You are comfortable motivating stakeholders across the business and negotiating timelines to unblock yourself and make things happen!   Salary range: the expected base salary range for this position is between €32,000 - €48,000. Base salary ranges are based on role, job level, location, and market data. Please note that whilst we strive to offer competitive compensation, our approach is to pay between the minimum and the mid-point of the pay range until performance can be assessed in role. Offers will take into account level of experience, interview assessment, budgets and parity between you and fellow employees at GoCardless doing similar work. (SOME OF) THE GOOD STUFF * Wellbeing - stay healthy with dedicated support and medical cover * Work away scheme - gives you the option to work away from your country of residence for up to 90 days in any 12 month period * Adaptive Working - allows you to work flexibly, around your lifestyle * Equity - all permanently employed GCs get equity to help you make a valuable contribution * Parental leave - to suit everyone embarking on life's great adventure * Learning Budget - lead your own development with an annual learning budget * Time off - generous holiday allowance, + 3 annual volunteer days, + 4 annual business-wide wellness days (‘GC Fridays’) LIFE AT GOCARDLESS   We're an organisation defined by our values; We start with why before we begin any project, to ensure it’s aligned with our mission. We act with integrity, always. We care deeply about what we do and we know it's essential that we be humble whilst we do it. Working this way creates the GC magic- the reason we all love showing up to work.  DIVERSITY & INCLUSION As of April 2025, we had 806 employees (GeeCees) globally, with 524 based in the UK, 163 based in Latvia and 119 across our other offices. To ensure that we're representative of the world around us - and to be able to review relevant benchmarks - we ask GeeCees to voluntarily disclose diversity data. This year, the proportion of GeeCees providing data increased to 88% (up from 79% in 2024). With regards to diversity within GoCardless, we can see GeeCees identifying as: Asian, Black, Mixed or Other — 25%  Neurodiverse — 9%  LGBTQIA+ — 9%  Disabled — 1%  Average age — 33 Female — 45% Male —  55%  We’re rooting for you during your application and GoCardless aims to provide reasonable adjustments to make our recruitment process as remarkable and accessible as we can. Please speak to your Talent Partner if you need extra support. If you want to learn more, you can read about our Employee Resource Groups and objectives here Sustainability We’re committed to reducing our impact on the environment, leaving a more sustainable world for future generations. Check out our sustainability action plan here. Find out more about Life at GoCardless via Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

GoCardless

About us GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking.  GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually, across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud. And, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, we help our customers make faster, more informed decisions. We are headquartered in the UK with offices in London and Leeds, and additional locations in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal and the United States. At GoCardless, we're all about supporting you! We’re committed to making our hiring process inclusive and accessible. If you need extra support or adjustments, reach out to your Talent Partner — we’re here to help!  And remember: we don’t expect you to meet every single requirement. If you’re excited by this role, we encourage you to apply! THE ROLE Fraud prevention is an ever-evolving puzzle, making it one of the most rewarding and impactful areas in fintech. At GoCardless, our Fraud Prevention team develops the intelligent systems that protect our platform, our merchants, and their customers. As a Senior Data Scientist, you will guide the design and delivery of models that operate in real time across our global payment network. You’ll work at the intersection of machine learning, graph-based detection, and behavioural modelling to stay ahead of changing patterns turning research into production systems that make a tangible difference in the fight against financial crime. You’ll collaborate closely with Engineers, Fraud Analysts, and Product Managers to help shape the technical roadmap as we expand into new markets. Our stack is centred around Google Cloud Platform and Vertex AI, using Python, SQL, and BigQuery to build and support high-performance models at scale. WHAT YOU'LL DO * Contribute to the full model lifecycle, from initial discovery and feature engineering through to production, experimentation, and continuous monitoring. * Design and refine real-time ML systems that reduce false positives and ensure a smooth, secure experience for legitimate customers. * Foster a responsive feedback loop, adapting models as patterns evolve to ensure our defences remain robust and effective. * Help shape the technical direction of fraud prevention ML at GoCardless, exploring new approaches as we grow globally. * Support the team’s growth through technical mentorship, knowledge sharing, and a commitment to high-quality code. WHAT EXCITES YOU * Solving complex, dynamic problems: Developing systems that can adapt and respond to changing environments. * End-to-end ownership: Seeing a project through from a conceptual business need to a live, impactful solution. * Strategic influence: Contributing to the ML roadmap and helping determine what we build next, rather than just how we build it. * Holistic Data Science: Engaging in deep-dive analysis, prototyping, and live experimentation. * Modern Infrastructure: Building production-grade models on GCP and Vertex AI, with the flexibility to explore advanced architectures. WHAT EXCITES US * You hold a degree (or PhD) in a STEM discipline, or bring equivalent depth through commercial experience. * You have hands-on experience with modelling approaches such as deep learning, graph-based methods, or sequence models. While fintech experience is great, we value transferable skills from fields like cybersecurity or risk modelling. * You have a track record of deploying models in production that create measurable value. * You can translate complex ML concepts into clear, practical solutions for stakeholders across the business. * You enjoy writing clean code and helping the team thrive through thoughtful reviews and shared learning.   Base salary range: €64,000 - €96,000   Base salary ranges are based on role, job level, location, and market data.  Please note that whilst we strive to offer competitive compensation, our approach is to pay between the minimum and the mid-point of the pay range until performance can be assessed in role. Offers will take into account level of experience, interview assessment, budgets and parity between you and fellow employees at GoCardless doing similar work. (SOME OF) THE GOOD STUFF * Wellbeing - stay healthy with dedicated support and medical cover * Work away scheme - gives you the option to work away from your country of residence for up to 90 days in any 12 month period * Adaptive Working - allows you to work flexibly, around your lifestyle * Equity - all permanently employed GCs get equity to help you make a valuable contribution * Parental leave - to suit everyone embarking on life's great adventure * Learning Budget - lead your own development with an annual learning budget * Time off - generous holiday allowance, + 3 annual volunteer days, + 4 annual business-wide wellness days (‘GC Fridays’) LIFE AT GOCARDLESS   We're an organisation defined by our values; We start with why before we begin any project, to ensure it’s aligned with our mission. We act with integrity, always. We care deeply about what we do and we know it's essential that we be humble whilst we do it. Working this way creates the GC magic- the reason we all love showing up to work.  DIVERSITY & INCLUSION As of April 2025, we had 806 employees (GeeCees) globally, with 524 based in the UK, 163 based in Latvia and 119 across our other offices. To ensure that we're representative of the world around us - and to be able to review relevant benchmarks - we ask GeeCees to voluntarily disclose diversity data. This year, the proportion of GeeCees providing data increased to 88% (up from 79% in 2024). With regards to diversity within GoCardless, we can see GeeCees identifying as: Asian, Black, Mixed or Other — 25%  Neurodiverse — 9%  LGBTQIA+ — 9%  Disabled — 1%  Average age — 33 Female — 45% Male —  55%  We’re rooting for you during your application and GoCardless aims to provide reasonable adjustments to make our recruitment process as remarkable and accessible as we can. Please speak to your Talent Partner if you need extra support. If you want to learn more, you can read about our Employee Resource Groups and objectives here Sustainability We’re committed to reducing our impact on the environment, leaving a more sustainable world for future generations. Check out our sustainability action plan here. Find out more about Life at GoCardless via Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.