Senior/Staff Research Data Scientist

As a Senior Research Data Scientist, you will have end-to-end ownership of custom models, heuristics, algorithms, and other data products that feed directly into TRM’s UX. In collaboration with a highly skilled team of engineers, data scientists, and research scientists, your goal will be to uncover valuable and defensible information that can be used to detect, prevent, and mitigate cryptocurrency fraud and financial crime.

The models and algorithms you create will be specifically designed to identify new threat vectors that are unique to cryptocurrencies and blockchains. These tools will be consumed by prestigious entities such as former FBI, Secret Service, and other law enforcement agencies, enabling them to stay ahead of evolving criminal activities in the cryptocurrency space.

In particular, the Traceability Team is responsible for investigating and tracing illicit actors that utilize technologies intentionally designed to obscure their blockchain transactions. The problems we face are exciting, challenging, and open-ended, requiring strong research-minded focus and curiosity. If you like solving hard problems with smart people, this is the place for you!

The impact you will have here:

• As leader of the Traceability team, you will drive technical data science investigations & research, resulting in statistical models tailored to identify patterns and anomalies associated with cryptocurrency fraud and financial crime. These models will help detect potential threats and provide valuable insights for law enforcement agencies.
• Research novel methods to parse blockchain data & “crack” obfuscating technologies, to consistently derive insights & learnings from huge amounts of data.
• Develop custom models, algorithms, and interactive visualizations that will be consumed by former FBI, Secret Service, and Europol agents and analysts to detect new threat vectors unique to cryptocurrencies and blockchains
• Collaborate with engineers and research scientists to design algorithms to analyze complex data structures inherent to cryptocurrencies and blockchains.
• You will stay up to date with the latest developments in the field of blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and financial crime. This will involve continuous learning, attending conferences, and exploring research papers to incorporate cutting-edge techniques into your work.

What we’re looking for:

• Your academic background is in a quantitative field such as Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering, Economics . Advanced degree preferred.
• You have 4+ years of experience working in a data science role, and leading research projects E2E
• You have strong proven experience with data science programming languages in production environments (Python & SQL heavily preferred)
• You have a high tolerance for ambiguity. You find a way through. You anticipate. You connect and synthesize.
• Experience with investigating financial data is preferred. Experience with and/or interest in blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies is preferred.
• Experience with Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) such as Monero, Z-Cash, Coin Mixing, MimbleWimble, and/or Full Chain Membership Proofs a huge plus

   

About the Team:

• TRM operates with a high level of collaboration and interdependence, fostering an inclusive culture where connections extend beyond work. We value diverse personalities and seek someone who is both results-driven and sociable, with strong communication, leadership, and teamwork skills, along with a positive, solutions-oriented mindset.
• As a globally distributed team, members may observe different timezones. However, most of the team will overlap between the hours of 7am-12pm PST for meetings and collaboration.
• All team members, regardless of location must have at least 4 hour overlap with PST business hours.
• The team is involved in 2 different on-calls
  • Analytics on-call: only requires focus on working time (average of < 1 hour a day every month)
  • Data Science on-call: full week on-call to ensure Data Science pipelines are running smoothly (average of 1-2 hours a day every 3 months)

Learn about TRM Speed in this position:

• Deliver a last minute impactful project for a key customer
• Build complex products effectively with tight timeframes (1-2 sprints for MVP)
• Work on several projects in parallel with different priorities and stakeholders

The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:

• The estimated base salary range for this role is $170,000 - $190,000. Please note that the base range is applicable to the US and will be different depending on the country.
• Additionally, this role may be eligible to participate in TRM’s equity plan.