Fraud and Risk Engineer

Overview

We are hiring for a Senior Fraud & Risk Engineer to join our team! You will own and build the risk infrastructure that powers our payments platform. This is a highly strategic and hands-on role where you will design, implement, and scale our fraud detection systems across a diverse and growing portfolio of merchants.

You’ll work across best-in-class tools like Sift and Sardine to create a multi-merchant risk engine that balances approval rates with fraud prevention. From rules architecture to model tuning and chargeback analysis, you’ll be responsible for driving measurable improvements in fraud performance.

This role is ideal for someone who has built or operated fraud systems in payments or marketplaces, thrives in high-ownership environments, and wants to shape risk as a core product function at a fast-growing fintech company.
Preference on a colleague who can work hybrid in our NYC office. 

What You’ll Do

• Own and evolve Breeze’s fraud risk engine, integrating Sift ML scoring and Sardine rules across all merchant categories
• Design and maintain a scalable rules architecture, including category-level defaults, merchant-specific overrides, velocity checks, and blocklists
• Continuously tune thresholds and features across merchant segments to optimize approval rates and minimize fraud
• Build feedback loops between manual review decisions, chargeback data, and model retraining to improve detection accuracy
• Partner closely with risk operations to translate real-world fraud patterns into automated rules and systems
• Lead onboarding of new merchants into the risk stack, solving cold-start challenges and calibrating risk for new verticals
• Monitor and improve key fraud KPIs, including approval rate, chargeback rate, and false positive rate
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, engineering, and operations to ensure risk systems are scalable and deeply integrated into the platform

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience
• 6+ years of experience in fraud/risk engineering within fintech, payments, marketplaces, acquiring processors, or related technology environments
• Proven hands-on experience integrating and operating third-party fraud detection platforms such as Sift, Sardine, Forter, Featurespace, Feedzai, or Kount
• Experience designing and supporting fraud systems for multi-merchant or marketplace environments, including segmentation, shared models, and merchant-specific risk strategies
• Strong understanding of payments infrastructure, transaction flows, fraud vectors, and rules engine design, including layered rules, velocity checks, and scalable rule management
• Deep operational fraud expertise, including manual review workflows, chargeback management, false-positive analysis, and translating operational insights into effective technical solutions
• Ability to own fraud and risk systems end-to-end, from architecture and integration through production deployment, measurement, and continuous iteration
• Highly analytical and data-driven, with a strong bias toward measurable outcomes, experimentation, and continuous improvement
• Strong cross-functional collaborator who can work effectively across engineering, product, operations, and risk teams
• Adaptable and resourceful, with the ability to thrive in fast-paced and ambiguous environments

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with PCI compliance, 3DS, and PSP-level risk tooling 
• Experience with high-risk verticals such as gaming, crypto, or digital goods 

Our Compensation Philosophy!

We believe compensation should be fair, competitive, consistent, and transparent. We benchmark compensation against the market and establish thoughtful bands for each role, with compensation reflecting experience, skills, location, role scope, and expected impact. We don't believe pay should primarily depend on how aggressively someone negotiates. Eligible employees receive meaningful equity, so the people building Breeze can participate in the long-term value they help create.

Benefits & Perks

• Health coverage: Breeze covers 100% of employee premiums on our competitive base plan and 75% of dependent premiums.
• PTO: 21 days, plus applicable company holidays.
• 401(k): Breeze covers all plan administration fees.
• Equity: Meaningful ownership in the company you're helping build.
• Equipment: A new MacBook Air and whatever else you need to do your best work.
• Office & education allowance: An annual budget for your workspace, tools, and professional development.
• Wellness: A monthly reimbursement to support your well-being.
• Annual global offsite: We bring the global Breeze team together every year. Previous destinations include Bali and Singapore, with Japan coming next.

Breeze is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion or creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship or immigration status, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, marital or partnership status, caregiver status, disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, height or weight, sexual and reproductive health decisions, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual violence, or stalking, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Breeze considers qualified applicants with criminal histories in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the New York City Fair Chance Act, where applicable.