Senior Data Scientist, Risk

At Shakepay, we're on a mission to usher in the Bitcoin golden age. We're reimagining financial services to give every Canadian their fair shake.

Our culture is built around doing work that matters, winning as a team, and celebrating success. If you're the kind of person who values growth, shipping fast, and sharing your ideas openly with a group of like-minded people, come and build with us

Since 2015, we've been building the Shakepay app to make buying and earning bitcoin fast, easy, and secure. In 2022, we launched the Shakepay Card, allowing shakers to earn bitcoin rewards when they shop. Today, more than one million Canadians use Shakepay to grow their bitcoin savings and take control of their financial future.

We're regulated across all Canadian provinces and territories, and backed by renowned venture capitalists with a funding of $44M. We have a passionate, loyal, and growing community, and we're looking for people who want to help us build something truly special.

About the risk team

We're re-instating a dedicated Risk team at Shakepay to build the next generation of our risk systems and decisioning capabilities.

The team's mission is to enable sustainable business growth by protecting customers, Shakepay, and the broader financial ecosystem from abuse - while balancing fraud prevention, regulatory compliance, customer experience, and operational efficiency.

This is a small, newly formed team (starting with two engineers and a dedicated data partner) with significant ownership and ambiguity. The team works closely across fraud, decision science, security, compliance, customer support, and product to build foundational risk systems, data infrastructure, and decision frameworks.

Senior Data Scientist, Risk

We're looking for a Senior Data Scientist to help define how Shakepay measures, understands, and manages risk.

This role is analytics-first, with selective use of machine learning where it meaningfully improves understanding or decision quality. You'll work closely with Risk Engineering and business partners to surface insights, guide prioritization, and evaluate the impact of risk controls.

You'll be expected to go deep on ambiguous problems, form strong points of view, and influence decisions - not just produce dashboards. This is a role for someone who can decide when analysis is enough, and when more sophisticated modeling is warranted.

What you'll be doing

• Partner with Risk, Engineering, Security, Compliance, and Operations to define risk metrics and success criteria
• Analyze fraud, scam, and abuse patterns across crypto and fiat products
• Build and maintain dashboards tracking fraud loss, false positives, customer friction, and operational efficiency
• Improve data instrumentation and data quality for risk-related events and decisions
• Evaluate and iterate on risk rules and controls using rigorous analysis
• Apply statistical and ML techniques to surface signals, segment risk, and prioritize interventions
• Conduct deep-dive investigations into incidents, trends, and emerging threats
• Communicate insights clearly and persuasively to senior stakeholders
• Help establish data standards and best practices within the Risk team

Who we're looking for

• 5+ years of experience as a Data Scientist or in a similar analytical role
• Strong proficiency in SQL and Python
• Experience with modern data stacks (e.g. Snowflake, dbt, Metabase, Preset)
• Experience performing deep analytical work (e.g. regression, classification, causal inference)
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate data into actionable insights and connect it to business objectives.
• Proven ability to work in ambiguous, fast-moving environments (startup experience strongly preferred)
• Strong sense of ownership and ability to challenge assumptions constructively
• Experience partnering closely with cross-functional stakeholders to influence decisions
• Good judgment when tailoring analytical toolkit to the problem at hand

Bonus points

• Experience with fraud, risk, trust & safety, AML, or compliance analytics
• Familiarity with fintech, payments, or other regulated industries
• Experience with ML techniques applied to classification, anomaly detection, or segmentation
• Interest in Bitcoin and excitement to learn more

• Help shape the future of money: Be part of a team that's revolutionizing financial services in Canada, one sat at a time.
• Impact millions: As cryptocurrency continues to gain traction, our potential for growth is massive. You can help us bring Shakepay and Bitcoin to all Canadians.
• Grow your career: We're growing, and so can you We have programs in place to encourage continuous learning, growth, and development.
• Ideas, not titles: We want the best ideas to make their way through, no matter where they come from.

• Be an owner - Every employee has stock options as part of their total compensation
• Reach your goals - Yearly salary assessments
• Health & wellness : Access to comprehensive health and dental coverage, including health and wellness spending accounts.
• Remote-friendly: Work from anywhere in Canada, with optional access to our office spaces in Montreal and Toronto.
• Level Up: A $2,000 annual budget for courses, certifications, and training to support your career growth.
• Time off: 20 days of vacation per year. And if you use all your vacation, we give you a $1,000 bonus.
• Parental leave: Enjoy a parental leave top up to 100% of your salary for 18 weeks.
• Have fun together: quarterly team-specific or company-wide offsite to connect with each other

The base salary range for this position is $130,000 - $150,000 CAD. Base pay may vary based on factors such as years of experience, skills and qualifications. Additionally, employees are eligible for equity, pay increases based on performance, benefits including health and dental care, and paid time off.

We understand that potential can be just as valuable as experience. If you're eager to learn, grow, and contribute to the mission but worry that you may not have the "right" experience, we still want you to apply. We encourage applications from everyone, regardless of background and life experience. We're firm believers that a little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept.

We use technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), to support certain parts of our hiring process. This can include tools that assist with scheduling, application review, candidate communications, and generating interview notes, guides, or summaries so our team can stay focused on the conversation. All hiring decisions are made by our hiring team.