Head of Data Science, Socure
Document Verification & Biometrics
$250-300k
+ Equity and bonus
More information about location
Digital ID verification & fraud protection
Be an early applicant
Digital ID verification & fraud protection
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$250-300k
+ Equity and bonus
More information about location
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To verify 100% of good identities in real-time and completely eliminate identity fraud on the internet.
Role
Who you are
- Advanced degree (MS/PhD preferred) in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, or a related field
- 10+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, or applied AI, with a strong track record of building and deploying production systems
- Deep expertise in computer vision and multimodal AI, including experience with vision-language models (VLMs)
- Proven experience building domain-specific foundation models or large-scale representation learning systems
- Strong understanding of biometric systems, including face recognition, liveness detection, and anti-spoofing techniques
- Experience detecting and mitigating deepfakes, presentation attacks, and counterfeit documents
- Strong understanding of agentic system design, including agent skills, orchestration/harness frameworks, and real-world deployment of autonomous or human-in-the-loop agents
- Experience with vector databases and embedding-based retrieval systems
- Strong awareness of emerging attack vectors, including prompt injection, adversarial inputs, and model exploitation techniques
- Proven ability to lead and scale high-performing teams while delivering under ambiguity and tight timelines
- Proficiency in Python and modern ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch)
- Proven ability to engage with customers and external stakeholders, clearly explaining complex AI systems, trade-offs, and outcomes to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Experience representing organizations in customer-facing discussions, executive briefings, or public speaking engagements is strongly preferred
- Please note that we can only hire within ~45 miles of San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Miami, and DC
What the job involves
- We are seeking an exceptional and forward-thinking leader to drive the next generation of AI-powered Document Verification and Biometrics solutions
- This role owns the end-to-end data science strategy and execution across document understanding, facial biometrics, and reusable identity systems, powering seamless and secure identity experiences
- You will lead the evolution from traditional computer vision systems to foundation model–driven, agentic architectures, tackling increasingly sophisticated threats such as deepfakes, presentation attacks, and counterfeit documents
- This role demands a leader who operates with strong ownership, moves decisively, and consistently pushes the boundary of what is possible in applied AI
- Own and define the data science vision for Document Verification, Biometrics, and Reusable ID, delivering step-function improvements in accuracy, speed, and user experience
- Lead and scale a high-performing team of data scientists and applied researchers, setting a high standard for execution, innovation, and accountability
- Architect and deploy state-of-the-art computer vision and multimodal systems, including vision-language models (VLMs), for document understanding, face matching, liveness detection, and identity verification
- Drive the development of domain-specific foundation models tailored to identity, documents, and biometrics, leveraging large-scale proprietary datasets
- Lead the transition to agentic systems, building intelligent agents that can reason over document and biometric signals, automate verification workflows, and adapt dynamically to new fraud patterns
- Advance fraud and attack detection capabilities, including deepfake detection, presentation attack detection, and counterfeit document detection
- Design and implement secure and robust systems resilient to emerging threats such as prompt injection and adversarial attacks on multimodal and agent-based systems
- Leverage vector databases and embedding systems to power similarity search, identity linking, and reusable identity experiences
- Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Risk teams to deliver scalable, production-grade solutions that meet both business and regulatory requirements
- Drive rapid experimentation and deployment, balancing innovation with reliability, explainability, and compliance
- Own customer communication and stakeholder management, serving as a trusted technical leader in engagements with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders; clearly articulate model behavior, agentic systems, performance trade-offs, and roadmap decisions while building strong, long-term relationships
- Represent Socure externally as a thought leader in biometrics, document AI, and fraud prevention
- What's Ahead: Areas of Innovation:
- Agentic Document Verification systems that can reason, adapt, and automate complex verification workflows
- Deepfake detection at scale, across images, video, and multimodal inputs
- Injection and adversarial attack detection for multimodal and agent-based systems
- Agentic red teaming, proactively identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities in AI systems
- Reusable identity platforms, enabling seamless and secure identity reuse across channels
Our take
Socure is an identity platform that aims to improve customer identification for digital transactions. The company is part of a growing market, with rivals in this competitive space including Signifyd, Riskified, AppsFlyer, ClearSale, Kount, SEON, and Fraud Fighters.
The engine delivered by Socure encompasses Know Your Customer (KYC), identity fraud detection, and document verification. With it, companies can scale rapidly by onboarding more good customers and preventing online fraud. Additionally, underbanked consumers who have been excluded from online services by outdated ID verification can gain access to critical benefits and services online.
Socure has rapidly escalated in popularity and reached a valuation well over $1 billion. Though not immune from the economic downturn of late, which resulted in two high-profile rounds of lay-offs, the company has secured considerable additional funds that will strengthen its financial position as it moves to capitalise on the ever-growing importance of identity verification and trust.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-22% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Nov 2021
$450m
SERIES E
Mar 2021
$100m
SERIES D
Total funding: $646.6m
Company benefits
- Health: Comprehensive medical coverage, including vision, dental, and FSA
- Parental Leave: Generous leave allowance for parents-to-be
- 401k: Pre-tax savings for retirement
- Life Insurance: Protect your family in case of emergency
- PTO: Take as much time as you need, when you need it
- 100% Remote: Work from anywhere anytime, whatever suits your lifestyle
- WFH Allowance: Generous reimbursement program to maximize your WFH setup
- Deskpass: Work in an office environment whenever you feel the need
- Mental Health Provider: Connect with clinicians when you need it
- Learning & Development: Self-education allowance & free career coaching
- Employee Assistance Program "EAP": Lifestyle resources available as well as additional mental health resources
- Fertility Provider: Family planning solutions for those interested
- Personal Legal Support: Significant discounts with RocketLawyer
Company HQ
Incline Village, NV
Leadership
Johnny Ayers
(Founder & CEO)Founder & General Partner of Switch Hit Ventures. Having been a Senior Consultant at IBM, they became COO and Board Member of Endeavor Up. Since then, was an Advisor at Pager and later founded Socure in 2012.
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