Senior Data Scientist - Payments ACH
Plaid
Data Science
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 174k-260,400 / year + Equity
Posted on Feb 14, 2026
We believe that the way people interact with their finances will drastically improve in the next few years. We’re dedicated to empowering this transformation by building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to create their own products. Plaid powers the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life. We work with thousands of companies like Venmo, SoFi, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Plaid’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Washington D.C., London and Amsterdam.
Plaid’s Payment Data team builds models, services, and platforms that improve how millions of users move money through ACH. We’re looking for data scientists to apply best-in-class methodologies to develop new products, enhance existing systems, and generate insights that power data-driven decision-making.
You’ll be a Data Scientist as a part of the Data org, tackling high-impact analytics and machine learning challenges that directly shape business outcomes. In this role, you’ll use data to drive strategic decisions, inform production direction, and evaluate and improve ML systems. You’ll partner closely with clients both pre- and post-sales to assess product performance, conduct retrospective analyses, and craft risk mitigation strategies that maximize impact.
Day to day, you’ll deep dive into model performance, triage issues, and identify opportunities for improvement across ML risk systems. You’ll develop new features to strengthen model performance, build scalable data pipelines using tools like dbt to automate ETL processes, and design metrics, alerts, and dashboards to monitor production models. This is an opportunity to combine analytical rigor, technical depth, and client collaboration to drive measurable results.
Responsibilities
- Applying your expertise in quantitative analysis, data mining, and data visualization to find insights for improving our API products
- Identifying useful signals that can be fed into machine learning models
- Informing and influencing product and engineering teams through your data analysis and presentations
- Making long-term data science roadmap decisions like how machine learning and data science iteration should be done at Plaid
- Championing a data-first approach toward decision-making across the entire organization
Qualifications
- 5+ years of industry experience in a product-focused Data Science role
- Experience working on ACH risk strategy or system, building Guaranteed ACH product is preferred
- Deep familiarity with SQL and data visualization tools
- Experiencing conducting large-scale A/B experiments, analyzing results, and translating them into concrete recommendations
- Familiarity with the AWS stack
- Understanding of modern machine learning techniques, such as classification, clustering, optimization, deep neural network, and natural language processing
- Proven ability to tailor your solutions to business problems in a cross-functional team
- Ability to code and iterate independently in Python to conduct exploratory data analysis
- Experience building data pipelines in DBT or Airflow is a plus
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience in Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering, Economics, or a closely related field
Our mission at Plaid is to unlock financial freedom for everyone. To support that mission, we seek to build a diverse team of driven individuals who care deeply about making the financial ecosystem more equitable. We recognize that strong qualifications can come from both prior work experiences and lived experiences. We encourage you to apply to a role even if your experience doesn't fully match the job description. We are always looking for team members that will bring something unique to Plaid!
Plaid is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion or religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, military or veteran status, disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Plaid is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance with your application or interviews due to a disability, please let us know at accommodations@plaid.com.
174000 - 260400 USD a year
The target base salary for this position ranges from $174,000/year to $260,400/year in Zone 1. The target base salary will vary based on the job's location.
Our geographic zones are as follows:
Zone 1 - New York City and San Francisco Bay Area
Zone 2 - Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington D.C.
Zone 3 - Austin, Boston, Denver, Houston, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego
Zone 4 - Raleigh-Durham and all other US cities
Additional compensation in the form(s) of equity and/or commission are dependent on the position offered. Plaid provides a comprehensive benefit plan, including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k). Pay is based on factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience and skillset, and location. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.