Risk Investigator

Responsibilities

• Lead complex investigations into suspected account takeover (ATO) incidents, exercising sound judgment to determine risk, containment, and recovery strategies.
• Own end-to-end response for high-impact and executive-visible ATO cases, serving as a primary coordinator across Fraud, Customer Support, Product, Engineering, Compliance, Legal, and Leadership.
• Communicate directly with customers during sensitive account security incidents, providing timely, empathetic guidance throughout the investigation and recovery process.
• Help develop and continuously improve ATO investigation policies, playbooks, and operational workflows to increase consistency, quality, and speed to response.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Risk teams to identify detection gaps and recommend improvements to authentication controls, fraud detection systems, and customer security features.
• Escalate emerging account takeover trends, attacker behaviors, and fraud vectors, working with leadership and partner teams to turn findings into actionable operational and product improvements.
• Provide subject matter expertise during critical incidents and help guide investigation strategy for the team's most complex and high-risk cases.
• Identify opportunities to automate repetitive investigative tasks and improve tooling, operational efficiency, and customer experience.
• Maintain clear, defensible investigative documentation that supports internal decision-making, regulatory requirements, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Mentor teammates by sharing investigative best practices, reviewing complex cases, and contributing to onboarding and training materials.

Requirements

• 3+ years of direct experience investigating and responding to account takeover (ATO) fraud incidents within a bank, fintech, payments company, or other financial services organization.
• Deep expertise in account takeover methodologies, attacker tactics, authentication systems, identity verification, and account recovery processes.
• Experience identifying common bank fraud typologies, such as wire fraud, ACH fraud, check fraud, mule accounts, and identity theft.
• Comfortable leading complex, ambiguous investigations that require balancing customer experience, fraud risk, and operational efficiency.
• Exceptional customer-facing communication skills and experience managing high-impact or executive-visible customer incidents with professionalism, empathy, and confidence.
• Excellent judgment when making time-sensitive decisions that affect customer access, account security, and financial risk.
• Skilled at influencing cross-functional partners and collaborating effectively with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Customer Support, and Leadership.
• Communicate complex investigative findings clearly and concisely, both verbally and in writing, to audiences ranging from customers to senior leadership.
• Track record of identifying operational inefficiencies and driving meaningful improvements through better processes, tooling, or automation.
• Highly organized and capable of managing multiple critical investigations while maintaining exceptional attention to detail.
• Enjoy mentoring teammates, raising the quality bar for investigations, and helping build a strong investigative culture.
• Strong product mindset and curiosity about evolving fraud threats, authentication technologies, and customer security.
• Motivated by protecting customers and continuously improving Mercury's ability to detect, investigate, and respond to account takeover threats.

Compensation

Base Salary

• US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $121,700 - $152,100
• US employees outside of New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $109,500 - $136,900

Total rewards package includes base salary, equity (stock options), and benefits. Salary and equity ranges are competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry.