Data Scientist

About Us:

At Parafin, we’re on a mission to grow small businesses.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but traditional banks often don’t have their backs. We build tech that makes it simple for small businesses to access the financial tools they need through the platforms they already sell on. 

We partner with companies like DoorDash, Amazon, Worldpay, and Mindbody to offer fast and flexible funding, spend management, and savings tools  to their small business users via a simple integration. Parafin takes on all the complexity of capital markets, underwriting, servicing, compliance, and customer service for our partners. 

We’re a tight-knit team of innovators hailing from Stripe, Square, Plaid, Coinbase, Robinhood, CERN, and more — all united by a passion for building tools that help small businesses succeed. Parafin is backed by prominent venture capitalists including GIC, Notable Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Ribbit Capital, and Thrive Capital. Parafin is a Series C company, and we have raised more than $194M in equity and $340M in debt facilities.

Join us in creating a future where every small business has the financial tools they need.

The Data Science Team 

Our Impact  

Data is core to Parafin’s mission to grow small businesses. Our platform partnerships and portfolio provide rich insight into SMB financial health, allowing us to create fair, automated, and broad access to financial services. As Parafin scales, the breadth and depth of our data grows with it, amplifying the impact we can have on customers and the trajectory of the business. 

Our Team 

Enthusiasm, skepticism, and respect for data are in our DNA – two of our co-founders were PhD data scientists at Robinhood. Since our founding, we have grown the team to include perspectives from graduate studies in physics, mathematics, bioengineering, economics, financial engineering, and electrical engineering and professional experience at Robinhood, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Faire, Segment, Facebook, and Google. We value first-principles thinking, attention to detail, and craftsmanship.  

Our Work
Our mission is to help Parafin succeed by leveraging the vast data that powers our platform. Our team partners closely with leaders across the company to drive impact. Our scope includes:  

Go-To-Market: We collaborate with our sales leaders to convey the value of embedded finance to prospective partners. Example projects:

• Identifying the impact of financial access on platform GMV using quasi-random variation

• Running simulations to assess the risk of offering financial products on specific platforms

Portfolio Monitoring and Servicing: We develop tooling to maintain portfolio health, driving sustainable growth for Parafin, our capital markets partners, and the small businesses we serve. Example projects:

• Estimating survival curves to predict cohorted loss rates

• Deploying LLM-based models to automatically identify bankruptcy from web data 

Product and Growth: We drive strategic decision-making and product design at the highest levels of the company. Example projects:

• Designing experiments to increase offer size for low-risk merchants

• Building tools to instrument and diagnose user behavior in our application flow 

Underwriting: We build models and systems to decide which SMBs receive offers for each financial product and on what terms. Example projects:

• Training a quantile regression model to forecast the distribution of SMB revenues and precisely size our financing offers 

• Applying convex optimization to generate competitive financing offers 

Beyond these focus areas, our team helps expand our impact by recruiting exceptional talent, improving our tools, and supporting each other through regular seminars and project reviews.

Your Impact 

You will make an outsized impact on Parafin’s trajectory by leading projects from end to end. You will quickly learn new methods, apply them across diverse areas of the business, and implement them robustly. You will develop expertise in specific areas of the business, but may tackle projects across domains as our priorities evolve.

Your Background and Skills 

Bachelor's Degree (or higher) in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science (or related fields). We believe the most effective data scientists bring the following skills to their work:

• Statistical Reasoning 

  • Approach data analysis with a critical, intellectually honest eye   

  • Design concise metrics that guide decision making 

  • Use robust causal inference methods 

  • Develop valid and predictive machine learning models

• Business Acumen 

  • Identify and effectively prioritize business problems

  • Solve business problems using appropriate data science techniques

  • Anticipate the impact of your work on our financial performance, customers, and compliance obligations  

• Engineering Mindset 

  • Write legible, reliable, and tested code 

  • Build or source tools to boost the team’s efficiency

  • Contribute to model and data infrastructure design

• Leadership and Collaboration 

  • Model Parafin’s values of efficiency, intellectual honesty, accountability, and empathy 

  • Build trusted relationships with stakeholders 

  • Document work, seek feedback, and share learnings proactively 

  • Mentor other DS members on the team

  • Management experience, a plus!

• Focused Execution 

  • Prioritize high-impact use of your time 

  • Scope projects rigorously  

  • Act with urgency
    

What We Offer

• Salary $175k-$220k + EQ
  Senior Level Salary $230-$290k + EQ

• Equity grant

• Medical, dental & vision insurance

• Unlimited PTO & work from home flexibility

• Commuter benefits

• Free lunches

• Paid parental leave

• 401(k)

• Employee assistance program

If you require reasonable accommodation in completing this application, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please contact us.