Head of Fraud

At Cardless, we’re building a credit card and loyalty platform that consumer businesses use to engage their customers. We’ve launched 14 credit cards, including for Coinbase, Alibaba, and Qatar Airways. We help businesses bring imaginative card programs to life, and have pioneered technology to embed credit card features natively into their products.

We value curiosity, humility, and intensity — we move fast and take ownership. This is a place where a motivated, resourceful individual can have an enormous impact on our trajectory. We're headquartered in San Francisco, and have raised about $90M in equity funding from top venture capital firms and angels.

THE JOB

We're looking for a Head of Fraud to join our team and build a world-class fraud prevention operation. In this role, you’ll manage fraud risk, which is core to what we do at Cardless, and as Head of Fraud, you’ll be responsible for the oversight of our fraud systems.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Fraud Prevention: Customer Onboarding

You’ll lead the development and implementation of fraud detection strategies during the customer onboarding process. This includes working with identity verification vendors, credit bureau integrations, and risk engines to ensure fraudulent application activity is caught early. You'll oversee how fraud tools and models are deployed and enhanced over time, working cross-functionally with product, engineering, compliance, and data science teams to build robust fraud prevention methods that protect against both identity fraud and synthetic identity attacks.

• Fraud Prevention: Transaction Monitoring

You'll be in charge of the systems responsible for monitoring real-time credit card transactions, ensuring a balance between fraud prevention and customer convenience. You'll lead efforts to fine-tune fraud detection algorithms, reduce false positives, and improve the customer experience in cases where accounts are flagged or cards are declined. Your role will involve collaborating with customer support to resolve disputes quickly while maintaining strong risk controls, leveraging insights from industry trends and machine learning techniques to stay ahead of emerging fraud threats.

• Ongoing Portfolio Monitoring

Continuously monitor and analyze transaction data to spot emerging fraud patterns and ensure the overall health of the platform and credit portfolio. You'll adjust fraud policies and controls as needed to mitigate risks while maintaining a high approval rate for legitimate transactions. Regular portfolio reviews, combined with real-time analytics, will allow you to proactively address risks and adjust fraud thresholds to safeguard the company’s assets while maintaining customer trust.

• Vendor and partner Management

Work closely with external fraud prevention vendors, issuing banks, and payment processors to strengthen fraud defense mechanisms. As the lead on fraud risk management, you'll present fraud trends and prevention strategies in regular meetings with these partners, ensuring that they align with both regulatory requirements and internal business needs. This includes optimizing the use of third-party fraud tools, exploring new fraud prevention technologies, and ensuring compliance with KYC/AML regulations.

REQUIREMENTS:

• 10+ years of experience in fraud operations within the fintech or payments industry, with specific experience managing fraud in lending and credit or debit card companies

• An ability to switch from 30,000 feet to 100 feet in a single day - you'll be overseeing our overall fraud strategy, but shouldn't be afraid to get your hands dirty and review sticky cases yourself.

• Proven track record of developing and managing fraud detection strategies, including customer onboarding and transaction monitoring

• Technical and quantitative skills (e.g., experience working with data tools, machine learning, or SQL-based analytics to support fraud detection and prevention)

• Strong communication skills — ability to communicate technical fraud concepts to non-technical stakeholders (e.g., Operations, Legal, Compliance, and leadership teams).

• Experience working at a technology company, and the collaboration with engineering and product that comes with it!

Nice-to-have: Experience in fintech, payments, or financial services is a plus but not required.

COMPENSATION

This role has an annual starting salary range of $200,000 - $250,000 + equity + benefits (see below). Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors, including but not limited to skills, experience, and specific work location.

BENEFITS

We're headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with a beautiful office in the Mission District. We're proud to offer our team excellent benefits:

💸 Meaningful Start-up equity

🏥 100% health, vision & dental primary coverage

➕ 75% health, vision & dental dependent coverage

🍱 Catered lunches

🚎 $250/month Commuter benefit

👶 Parental leave

✈️ Team building events & happy hours

🌴 Flexible PTO with a minimum of 15 days off per year

🖥️ Apple equipment

💸 401k plan

LOCATION

We're headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with a beautiful office in the Mission District (near Dolores Park). We welcome employees who want to work from this office; we offer additional benefits to those who do, and relocation assistance to those who'd like to.

We regularly bring our team together for offsites & trips, about every 2 months, both for fun and for work. We cover all travel & lodging in these cases.