Manager, Model Risk and Governance

Job description

SentiLink https://www.sentilink.com/ provides innovative identity and risk solutions, empowering institutions and individuals to transact with confidence. We’re building the future of identity verification in the United States replacing a clunky, ineffective, and expensive status quo with solutions that are 10x faster, smarter, and more accurate. We’ve seen tremendous traction and are growing extremely quickly. Our real-time APIs have helped verify hundreds of millions of identities, starting with financial services and rapidly expanding into new markets. SentiLink is backed by world-class investors including Craft Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, NYCA, and Max Levchin. We’ve earned recognition from TechCrunch, CNBC, Bloomberg, Forbes, Business Insider, PYMNTS, American Banker, LendIt, and have been named to the Forbes Fintech 50 https://www.forbes.com/companies/sentilink/?list=fintech50. We have also been named a 2026 FICO Industry Vanguard Decision Award Winner https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260330439998/en/SentiLink-Named-a-2026-FICO-Industry-Vanguard-Decision-Award-Winner-for-Leadership-in-Identity-Theft-Detection. Last but not least, we’ve even made history - we were the first company to go live with the eCBSV https://resources.sentilink.com/blog/sentilink-makes-history-as-first-ecbsv-provider and testified before the United States House of Representatives https://resources.sentilink.com/media/sentilinks-statement-before-the-house-financial-services-committee on the future of identity. SentiLink supports a variety of ways to work, ranging from fully remote to in-office. We operate as a digital-first company with strong collaboration across the U.S. and India. We maintain physical offices in Austin, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle (Bellevue), Los Angeles, and Chicago in the U.S., and in Gurugram (Delhi) and Bengaluru in India. If you’re located near one of these offices, we would love for you to spend time in the office regularly. Some roles are hybrid or in-office by design. For example, our engineering team in India works primarily from our Gurugram office. ROLE: SentiLink builds models that financial institutions rely on to catch fraud in real time. Every one of those models has to hold up to the scrutiny of our customers' model risk teams, their regulators, and their auditors, and it has to do so without slowing down how fast we ship. That tension is the job. We're hiring a Manager of Model Risk and Governance to own this function end to end. You'll lead a team of 3+ data scientists and governance professionals, set the long-term strategy, and be accountable for what great model governance looks like here, strategically and in the day-to-day details. This is a lead-from-the-front role, and it requires the depth and willingness to step in, hands on, when the work calls for it. The team will grow as the company does, and you'll be the one building it. This is a remote, US-based role. Technologies: Python 3, PostgreSQL, and AWS infrastructure (EC2, S3, RDS, Redshift, etc.) WHAT YOU'LL DO: - Lead, grow, and develop a team of 3+, with real room to scale as the business does. - Own the fundamentals and raise the bar on how we execute them: performance monitoring, drift monitoring, fair lending assessments, governance documentation, validation, model inventory, and change management. - Set the strategy for the function. Decide what we automate, what we standardize, and where we need to be better than the industry norm. - Own relationships for anything governance-related, across Data Science, Engineering, Partner Success, and Sales. - Own customer relationships directly. Run customer-facing calls, work with model risk teams at banks and fintechs, and get ahead of the relationships that matter most. - Guide customers on pushing adoption forward while meeting their governance standards. You'll often be the one who unblocks a deal or a deployment. - Prepare validation reports, governance documentation, and performance summaries for internal leadership, customers, auditors, and regulators - Track governance findings through remediation and manage the team's roadmap, balancing strategic work against customer and regulatory demands - Do the work yourself when it's warranted, to move something forward or to mentor the team. This is a high-leverage role. Governance gates how quickly our customers can adopt what we build, which makes it a direct lever on the company's growth, with substantial room for the right person to define it and grow with it. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR: - 8+ years in model risk management, model validation, model governance, or quantitative risk, including proven experience building or scaling a governance/risk team (not just operating within one) - 4+ years of people management experience with proven experience building and scaling model risk or governance teams, not just operating within one - Deep knowledge of model governance for financial institutions. You know SR 11-7, SR 26-2, OCC guidance, fair lending, and the regulatory landscape, and you have firsthand experience validating or governing ML/statistical models in a regulated environment - Genuine technical depth: able to read the model, interrogate the methodology, and hold your own with data scientists. Working knowledge of Python and proficiency in SQL - A strong bias for action. You balance governance rigor against speed with judgment rather than defaulting to either. - Strong analytical skills (Excel/Google Sheets) and excellent written/verbal communication, comfortable translating technical findings for both technical and non-technical audiences - Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field (Math, Statistics, CS, Engineering, Economics, or related STEM) - Must be legally authorized to work in and reside in the US NICE TO HAVES: - Experience working with fraud, identity verification, credit risk, or financial risk models - Experience supporting model governance with banks or regulated financial institutions - Experience with AWS (S3, SageMaker) and GitHub - Master's degree in a quantitative field COMPENSATION: $210,000-$240,000/year + equity + benefits PERKS: - Employer paid group health insurance for you and your dependents - 401(k) plan with employer match (or equivalent for non US-based roles) - Flexible paid time off - Regular company-wide in-person events - Home office stipend, and more! CORPORATE VALUES: - Follow Through - Deep Understanding - Whatever It Takes - Do Something Smart