Senior Data Scientist / Credit Risk, Global Risk Decision Science

About the Team/Role 
Our Team: The Risk Data Science team is part of the Global Risk Solutions and Strategy group. We are a fast-growing team optimizing risk solutions and models, and we are a key function to help enable WEX’s strategic objectives. The Risk Data Science team uses a variety of advanced methodologies (including machine learning and statistical frameworks), a wide suite of data types, and modern technologies to develop solutions to inform decision making. One of the areas of our team helps the firm identify and measure credit risk to proactively manage the risk throughout the client’s life-cycle.  As such, you will not only be working with the latest data and machine learning technologies and algorithms, you will be working in a dynamic environment alongside our stakeholders and domain experts to build models and drive better decision-making. 

Our Company: WEX is a fast-growing multinational payments company based in beautiful Portland, Maine. WEX headquarters is situated in the heart of Portland amongst some of the best restaurants in the country and overlooking the ocean and lighthouses. When you are here, you know you are in Maine. We have generous paid time off and paid volunteering time, not to mention great benefits and a culture that values diversity and inclusion.

You are driven to do great work. You love learning new things and solving complex problems with data tools and algorithms. You believe that communication and relationships are key to success alongside your data and machine learning prowess.

Partner with stakeholders to develop data-driven methods to measure and monitor credit risk across the firm’s products and services.  

Leverage understanding of credit processes (including credit origination, portfolio monitoring, credit line assignment, loss forecasting, and others) to design flexible, scalable, and automated modeling solutions.  

Utilize advanced statistical and machine learning methods and technologies to deliver best-in-class models to support risk decision making

Develop code and automated processes to manipulate high volume, high dimensional data sources to extract informative patterns, perform exploratory analyses and engineer useful features

Keep abreast with emerging trends in lending, macroeconomic environment, and machine learning to identify new opportunities and tools to solve problems and drive innovation

Synthesize data science findings into actionable insights and articulate them to the appropriate stakeholders 

Proactively identify and communicate challenges, opportunities, and risks associated with project work to ensure timely completion of the entire product

How you’ll make an impact

Insights Driven: Clear hypothesis and objective driven analytics that help drive our business decisions and ongoing metrics

Stakeholder Aligned: Understand the needs and audience for deliverables with a succinct and tailored message to maximize impact

Results Focused: Rigorous focus on how data science drive the end to end experiences with clear path to production and measurable impact

Dynamic Collaboration: Drive continual improvement of our team best practices and processes to power collaboration

Quality Mindset: Trust in our findings is critical so data and analytic quality is understood and accounted for from the beginning

Curiosity and Learning: Learn new technologies and collaborate and teach others how to use them as necessary. 

Experience You’ll Bring:

3+ years of hands-on experience leveraging statistical and machine learning methods to deliver impactful solutions for measuring and managing credit risk, credit risk strategy, or other elements of the credit risk life-cycle

Solid understanding of credit risk-drivers in small and medium sized businesses, public firms, and private firms, including data typically used in credit risk management from external credit bureaus and internal risk management processes 

Master’s or PhD degree in a quantitative field such as Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, Operations Research, Computer Science

Advanced knowledge of SQL and experience creating complex processes to transform large datasets for modeling and analysis

Solid knowledge of scripting languages such as Python or R and standard data visualization and modeling libraries such as scikit-learn, matplotlib, pandas, numpy etc.

Solid knowledge of statistical principles, such as testing, probability distributions, Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood estimation, sampling, regression modeling, time series forecasting etc.

Solid knowledge of machine learning algorithms such as random forests, gradient boosting models, decision trees, anomaly detection, clustering, regularization, imbalanced data techniques etc. 

Strong communication and presentation skills with an ability to relate complex analytics findings to business outcomes

Adaptable and comfortable working collaboratively and independently in a self-starting manner

Experience being an effective member in a mixed team of technical and non-technical colleagues

Evidence of creative problem solving, critical thinking and a continual learning mindset

How you will stand out:
2+ years experience building machine learning credit risk models in payment processing space

Extensive knowledge of data attributes and coverage of risk-factors in external bureau data for small business.

Credit risk rating and credit line management modeling experience

Experience developing machine learning models in a cloud environment, such as AWS 

Experience with end–to-end ML lifecycle and MLOps frameworks such as Docker, CI/CD, Airflow.

Key Words
Credit Risk, Originations, Underwriting, Loss Forecasting, Python, Data Science, Machine Learning, Statistical Learning, Applied Artificial Intelligence

The base pay range represents the anticipated low and high end of the pay range for this position. Actual pay rates will vary and will be based on various factors, such as your qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. Base pay is one component of WEX's total compensation package. Most sales positions are eligible for commission under the terms of an applicable plan. Non-sales roles are typically eligible for a quarterly or annual bonus based on their role and applicable plan. WEX's comprehensive and market competitive benefits are designed to support your personal and professional well-being. Benefits include health, dental and vision insurances, retirement savings plan, paid time off, health savings account, flexible spending accounts, life insurance, disability insurance, tuition reimbursement, and more. For more information, check out the "About Us" section.

Pay Range: $135,000.00 - $180,000.00