Senior Optimization Data Analyst
Senior Optimization Data Analyst on Adyen's Performance Optimization team in Chicago, driving payment performance for large merchants through risk, fraud, and ML-driven decisioning analysis. Works with large-scale transactional and risk model data using Python, SQL, PySpark, Spark, Airflow, and BI tools like Looker/Tableau.
- Compensation
- $154K–$200K / yr
- Location
- Chicago
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 10+ years
- Category
- Data analytics
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 10+ years of relevant experience in data analytics, data science, risk, or fraud optimization with measurable impact in payments or fintech
- Payments or fintech industry experience (required at this level, not a plus)
- Deep expertise in risk and fraud analytics, including hands-on experience with ML-based decisioning systems and large-scale risk model data
- Expert-level proficiency in Python, SQL, and PySpark with large-scale data processing, scalable ETL pipelines, and production-grade analytical systems
- Strong experience with data visualization and self-service analytics tools such as Looker or Tableau
- Deep understanding of statistical methods including hypothesis testing, experiment design, and regression modeling
- Experience with big data technologies including Spark and Airflow, and version control with Git
- Ability to translate complex analytical findings into merchant-facing recommendations, product feedback, and strategic narratives for senior stakeholders
- Proven ability to lead high-impact, cross-functional initiatives independently across commercial, product, and data functions
- Forward-looking perspective on payments risk and fraud optimization, including ML adoption, evolving authentication frameworks, and agentic commerce challenges
- Ownership mentality, intellectual curiosity, and ability to operate in a fast-paced, ambiguous, global environment
- Track record of mentorship, knowledge transfer, methodology development, and scalable tooling
Full description
This is Adyen
Adyen provides payments, data, and financial products in a single solution for customers like Meta, Uber, H&M, and Microsoft - making us the financial technology platform of choice. At Adyen, everything we do is engineered for ambition.
For our teams, we create an environment with opportunities for our people to succeed, backed by the culture and support to ensure they are enabled to truly own their careers. We are motivated individuals who tackle unique technical challenges at scale and solve them as a team. Together, we deliver innovative and ethical solutions that help businesses achieve their ambitions faster.
Senior Optimization Data Analyst
We are looking for a Senior Optimization Data Analyst to take a defining role in how Adyen drives payment performance for its most complex merchants. As a senior member of the Performance Optimization team, you will bring the full breadth of payment optimization expertise expected at this level, across authentication, authorization, and cost, while going deeper in risk, fraud, and ML-driven decisioning than any other role on the team. You will combine hands-on technical capability with recognized domain expertise in risk to lead the team's most complex merchant engagements, shape PO's analytical methodology, and accelerate the adoption of Adyen's optimization capabilities across the merchant portfolio.
This role sits at the intersection of technical depth and commercial impact. You will work directly with large-scale transactional data, including ML output and labeled risk data, to generate comprehensive insights that connect to merchant strategy. You will do this in close collaboration with Adyen's product teams, through insights and feedback that drive product improvements, and an analytical layer that makes risk model behavior more interpretable and actionable for merchants and internal teams alike. You will build the frameworks, tools, and knowledge that allow the broader PO team and commercial stakeholders to operate with greater confidence and independence in this domain.
The ideal candidate has a track record of driving measurable outcomes through data analytics in payments or fintech, with deep hands-on experience working with large-scale transactional data, and ML-based risk data. They operate with a high degree of autonomy, owning complex analytical problems end to end from scoping through to recommendation, without requiring active direction to make progress. And they bring the ability to translate what the data reveals into strategies that merchants and internal teams can understand and act on.
What you'll do
- Domain-Led Merchant Engagement: Lead PO's most complex merchant engagements in the risk, fraud, and ML optimization domain. This includes designing and interpreting sophisticated analyses, advising merchants on how to safely operationalize ML-driven decisioning systems, identifying performance gaps that require domain-level expertise to diagnose, and driving strategic improvements in fraud strategy, risk rule configuration, authentication flows, and authorization performance across Adyen's largest customers.