Staff ML Risk Analytics

Ready to do the most impactful work of your career? At Coinbase, we are uncompromising on our mission to increase economic freedom. The bar is high, the environment is intense, and we like it that way. This isn't a place for complacency, it’s a place to be pushed past your perceived limits. If you're ready to build the future of finance alongside people who refuse to settle for "good enough," you belong here. Coinbase is a remote-first, but not remote-only company. Expect to get together quarterly for intense in-person working sessions called “surges.” learn more about working at Coinbase. As a Staff Machine Learning Analytics professional on the Growth & Risk team, you will sit at the intersection of fraud intelligence and machine learning infrastructure defining how we identify, model, and respond to sophisticated fraud at scale. Fraud at Coinbase is a fast-evolving problem: our counterparties are professional, adaptive, and operate faster than any human response team can. That's why we build ML-powered, automated solutions. Your work will directly determine how well our systems can detect and prevent account takeover (ATO) and scam activity before it reaches our users. This is not a traditional risk analyst role. We are not looking for rule-writers. We are looking for someone who understands how the ML industry has evolved and can apply that knowledge to hard, high-stakes fraud problems. What you’ll be doing: Define the ML data and feature strategy for fraud detection, determining what data needs to enter our systems so our models can take intelligent, high-accuracy action on a small fraction of traffic where intervention matters most. Own the end-to-end feature engineering pipeline identifying, building,validating and promoting features that drive measurable improvements in ATO and scam ML performance. Diagnose gaps between current tooling infrastructure and the solutions needed, and drive the roadmap to close them leveraging your understanding of how the industry has evolved to make the right architectural calls. Partner with Machine Learning Engineers to translate analytical insights into production-ready ML systems, ensuring models are instrumented, monitored, and continuously improved. Set technical direction for the ML Analytics function within Growth & Risk, mentoring junior team members who need a senior practitioner to define the approach and translate direction into execution. Partner cross-functionally with Product Managers and Risk analysts to surface fraud signals and translate ML findings into business-impacting decisions. Serve as the team's institutional knowledge resource on ML industry evolution — helping the organization understand why certain solutions work, what historical architectural decisions mean for current tooling, and where the industry is headed next. What we look for in you: 8+ years of hands-on experience in machine learning analytics, data science, or a related technical field with meaningful experience applied to risk, fraud, or payments problems. Deep, practitioner-level expertise in Spark, Python, and big data ML this is the core stack. SQL and rule-writing are adjacent skills; they are not what this role is about. Proven experience in feature engineering for ML models, including identifying the right signals, building pipelines, and validating feature quality at scale. Holistic understanding of how the ML industry has evolved over the past decade from Hadoop-era big data to modern feature stores like Tecton and the ability to apply that knowledge to close infrastructure gaps. A curated, high-precision approach to ML problems: you understand that in fraud and risk, you are optimizing for sensitivity and accuracy on a small fraction of high-stakes traffic not the broad-coverage, high-volume approach used in growth or ads. Background in risk or payments ML is strongly preferred candidates who have operated in this domain understand the problem framing intuitively. A passion for fighting fraud and abuse, and the curiosity to self-drive investigations, identify patterns, and find the root cause Demonstrates the ability to responsibly use generative AI tools and copilots (e.g., LibreChat, Gemini, Glean) in daily workflows, continuously learn as tools evolve, and apply human-in-the-loop practices to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in efficiency, cost, and quality. Nice to haves: Experience with modern ML feature stores (Tecton, Feast, or equivalent). Prior work at FinTech companies, payments platforms, or risk solution vendors Familiarity with crypto-specific fraud vectors including ATO, scam flows, and onchain transaction patterns. Job ID: P74887 Pay Transparency Notice: Base salary varies by location (see range below). Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)). Annual base salary range (excluding equity and bonus): $193,970—$228,200 USD Please be advised that each candidate may submit a maximum of four applications within any 30-day period. We encourage you to carefully evaluate how your skills and interests align with Coinbase's roles before applying. Commitment to Equal Opportunity Coinbase is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other basis protected by applicable law. Coinbase will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. For US applicants, you may view the Employee Rights and the Know Your Rights notices by clicking on their corresponding links. Additionally, Coinbase participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law. Coinbase is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please contact us at accommodations[at]coinbase.com to let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. For quick access to screen reading technology compatible with this site click here to download a free compatible screen reader (free step by step tutorial can be found here). Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates and Applicants Depending on your location, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) may regulate the way we manage the data of job applicants. Our full notice outlining how data will be processed as part of the application procedure for applicable locations is available here. By submitting your application, you are agreeing to our use and processing of your data as required. For US applicants only, by submitting your application you are agreeing to arbitration of disputes as outlined here. AI Disclosure For select roles, Coinbase is piloting an AI tool based on machine learning technologies to conduct initial screening interviews to qualified applicants. The tool simulates realistic interview scenarios and engages in dynamic conversation. A human recruiter will review your interview responses, provided in the form of a voice recording and/or transcript, to assess them against the qualifications and characteristics outlined in the job description. For select roles, Coinbase is also piloting an AI interview intelligence platform to transcribe and summarize interview notes, allowing our interviewers to fully focus on you as the candidate. The above pilots are for testing purposes and Coinbase will not use AI to make decisions impacting employment. To request a reasonable accommodation due to disability, please contact accommodations[at]coinbase.com