Opportunity at
MonzoLead Machine Learning Scientist, FinCrime
Monzo is recruiting a Lead Machine Learning Scientist for its Financial Crime team, which has more than 25 people across analytics engineering, data analysis, machine learning…
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About This Role
Monzo is recruiting a Lead Machine Learning Scientist for its Financial Crime team, which has more than 25 people across analytics engineering, data analysis, machine learning and data science. The role is a technical individual contributor leadership position and can be based in London or carried out remotely within the UK, with occasional London meetings. The posting gives a salary of £115,000 to £150,000 plus incentive awards and benefits. Fraud…
Job Description
Monzo is recruiting a Lead Machine Learning Scientist for its Financial Crime team, which has more than 25 people across analytics engineering, data analysis, machine learning and data science. The role is a technical individual contributor leadership position and can be based in London or carried out remotely within the UK, with occasional London meetings. The posting gives a salary of £115,000 to £150,000 plus incentive awards and benefits.
Fraud and scams are among the largest cost lines in a bank, so the team's work has a major effect on the company's results and on customers' experience. The lead would build and deploy machine learning models that detect suspicious user behaviour while limiting the impact on genuine customers and on operating costs. The work also includes keeping detection systems effective as fraud patterns change. Problem areas include stopping fraud, watching transactions for suspicious patterns, assessing customer risk and building operational tools.
The lead would work inside a cross-functional squad with PMs, data scientists, backend engineers as well as designers, and would help identify the most valuable opportunities to tackle fraud with machine learning. Technical work could include deep learning, graph methods and sequence models for real-time detection. The lead would also mentor colleagues, raise technical standards across the discipline and work with the MLOps team to speed up model iteration across the full lifecycle.
Applicants should have a multi-year record of leading advanced machine learning work that reached production, ideally in a fast-moving technology company. Extensive experience with production Python and a firm command of SQL are required, and interest in learning Go is welcome. The posting also asks for a self-starter who enjoys ambiguity and communicates well with colleagues outside the field. Work in fincrime and regulated firms is a nice-to-have. The interview process is a 30-minute recruiter call, a 45-minute hiring manager call and a full loop, usually taking three to four weeks.
Responsibilities
- Identify the most valuable opportunities to tackle fraud and financial crime with machine learning
- Lead design and build work on real-time models, such as neural networks, graph methods and sequence modelling
- Detect suspicious user behaviour while limiting the impact on genuine customers
- Keep detection systems effective as fraud and financial crime patterns evolve
- Provide technical leadership, mentoring and standards across the machine learning discipline
- Work with the MLOps team to improve tools for rapid model iteration
Requirements
- Multi-year record of leading advanced machine learning models that reached production
- Experience shipping deep learning, graph-based or sequence-based models with business impact
- Extensive experience with production Python and a firm command of SQL
- Self-starter who spots and acts on issues and opportunities
- Ability to work with ambiguity and explain ML ideas to colleagues outside the field
- Product mindset focused on customer outcomes
Qualifications
- Background in fincrime work or in regulated institutions (nice to have)
- Experience writing production-grade code and working with microservices (nice to have)
Core Skills
Benefits
- Incentive awards tied to performance
- Annual learning allowance of £1,000 spent on books, courses and events
- Flexible working hours
- Help with relocation to the UK and visa sponsorship
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
What is the salary?
The posting lists £115,000 to £150,000 plus incentive awards tied to performance and benefits.
Where is the role based?
The posting lists London, Cardiff or UK remote, with the London office as the base and occasional meetings in London for distributed staff.
What technical skills are needed?
Extensive production Python and a firm command of SQL are required, with interest in Go a plus.
What does the team work on?
The team focuses on stopping fraud, monitoring transactions for suspicious patterns, assessing customer risk and building operational tools.
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