Clara is the fastest-growing company in Latin America. We've built the leading solution for companies to make and manage all their payments. We already help over 20,000 large and growing businesses operate with agility and financial clarity through locally issued corporate cards, bill pay, financing, and a powerful B2B platform built for scale.
Clara is backed by some of the most successful investors in the world, including top regional VCs like monashees, Kaszek, and Canary, and leading global funds like Notable Capital, Coatue, DST Global Partners, ICONIQ Growth, General Catalyst, Citi Ventures, SV Angel, Citius, Endeavor Catalyst, and Goldman Sachs - in addition to dozens of angel investors and local family offices.
We’re building the financial infrastructure that powers high-performing organizations across the region. We invite you to join us if you want to be part of a fast-paced environment that will accelerate your career and support you to do some of the best work of your life alongside a passionate and committed team distributed across the Americas.
We're looking for a Senior Data Scientist – Risk Modeling to join Clara’s Risk Data Science team. In this role, you will combine advanced analytics, machine learning, and credit risk expertise to develop and improve models and strategies that support underwriting, portfolio management, and risk decision-making across Clara’s markets.
You will work closely with Risk, Data, Engineering, Finance, and Operations, taking analytical problems from exploration and model development through validation, monitoring, and business implementation.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Develop credit risk models: Design, build, validate, and maintain predictive models for credit origination, behavioral risk, portfolio management, and other risk use cases.
- Own the modeling lifecycle: Work across the full model lifecycle, including problem definition, population and target construction, feature engineering, model development, validation, backtesting, calibration, monitoring, and recalibration.
- Drive advanced risk analytics: Use SQL and Python to explore large datasets, identify portfolio trends, analyze delinquency and losses, and translate findings into actionable risk strategies.
- Strengthen credit decisioning: Support the development and optimization of underwriting strategies, score cutoffs, credit limits, segmentation, and portfolio management policies.
- Monitor model and portfolio performance: Build monitoring frameworks to track model discrimination, calibration, stability, data drift, portfolio trends, vintages, roll rates, delinquency, and other key risk indicators.
- Improve data and modeling quality: Validate data sources, implement data quality controls, assess feature stability, and identify potential issues such as leakage, selection bias, or population drift.
- Work with rejected and unobserved populations: Contribute to methodologies for addressing reject inference, selection bias, thin-file populations, and limited performance information where relevant.
- Develop in a modern ML environment: Use Databricks, MLflow, GitHub, Python, SQL, scikit-learn, and other appropriate modeling tools to build reproducible and well-documented analytical solutions.
- Support model implementation: Collaborate with Data and Engineering teams to ensure models developed by Risk Data Science can be reliably deployed and integrated into business decision flows.
- Translate analytics into business decisions: Communicate complex analytical findings clearly to Risk leadership and non-technical stakeholders and help turn model outputs into actionable business strategies.
- Contribute to Risk Analytics standards: Help build scalable methodologies for model development, validation, monitoring, documentation, and governance across Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia.
Who you are
We’re looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. Preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.
Must haves
- 4–6+ years of experience in Data Science, Risk Analytics, Credit Risk, or related analytical roles.
- At least 2 years of hands-on experience developing or validating credit risk models or other predictive risk models.
- Strong proficiency in Python and SQL for data manipulation, statistical analysis, and model development.
- Experience working with Databricks or similar cloud-based analytics platforms.
- Experience developing predictive models using libraries such as scikit-learn, LightGBM/XGBoost, PyTorch, or equivalent tools.
- Understanding of the full model lifecycle, including development, validation, backtesting, monitoring, recalibration, and documentation.
- Strong understanding of credit risk analytics, including concepts such as:
- delinquency and default;
- vintage analysis;
- roll rates;
- bad rates;
- portfolio performance;
- score discrimination and calibration;
- population and model stability.
- Experience working with large financial or transactional datasets and strong commitment to data quality and integrity.
- Ability to translate quantitative analysis into credit strategies and business recommendations.
- Working proficiency in English and Spanish.
- Academic background in Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Engineering, Computer Science, Actuarial Science, Data Science, or a related quantitative field.
- Ability to work in a fast-moving environment and collaborate across Risk, Data, Engineering, and business teams.
Nice to have
- Experience in fintech, lending, credit cards, payments, or B2B financial products.
- Experience with Latin American credit markets, particularly Mexico, Brazil, or Colombia.
- Knowledge of credit bureau data and alternative data sources.
- Experience with PD modeling, expected loss, ECL, LGD, or EAD methodologies.
- Experience with reject inference or modeling under selection bias.
- Experience defining credit line strategies, cutoffs, risk segmentation, or underwriting policies.
- Experience with MLflow, model registries, version control, and reproducible ML workflows.
- Experience with Git and GitHub.
- Knowledge of data engineering concepts and ETL/data pipelines.
- Experience taking models from development through implementation in partnership with Engineering.
- Experience with visualization or BI tools such as Metabase.
- Master’s degree in Statistics, Data Science, Machine Learning, Economics, Finance, or a related quantitative field.
At Clara, you’ll have the autonomy, speed, and support to make meaningful impact — not just on your team, but on how organizations are run across Latin America.
Who we areWe’re the leading B2B fintech for spend management in Latin America.
Certified as one of the world's fastest-growing companies, a Great Place to Work, and a LinkedIn Top Startup.
Passionate about making Latin America more prosperous and competitive.
Constantly innovating to build financial infrastructure that enables each of our customers to thrive.
Product-led, high-talent-density culture — designed for builders who raise the bar.
Proud of our open, inclusive, and values-driven environment.
#Clarity. We say things clearly, directly, and proactively.
#Simplicity. We reduce noise to focus on what really matters.
#Ownership. We take responsibility and never wait to be told.
#Pride. We build products and experiences we’re proud of.
#Always Be Changing (ABC). We grow through feedback, risk-taking, and action.
#Inclusivity. Every voice counts. Everyone contributes to our mission.
Competitive salary and stock options (ESOP) from day one
Multicultural team with daily exposure to Portuguese, Spanish, and English (our corporate language)
Annual learning budget and internal accelerated development paths
High-ownership environment: we move fast, learn fast, and raise the bar — together
Smart, ambitious teammates — low ego, high impact
Flexible vacation and hybrid work model focused on results
If you’re ready for growth, ownership, and impact — apply now and help us redefine B2B finance in Latin America.
Clara’s Hybrid Policy
Claridians in a hybrid mode split their time between working from the office, talking to or visiting customers, or working from home. This hits a balance between bringing people together for in-person collaboration and learning from each other, while supporting flexibility about how to do this in a way that makes sense for each individual and team.
We don't enforce a minimum number of days for most roles, but you're expected to spend time at the office organically, and be at the office most days during your ramp-up or when required by your leader.
Skills Required
- 4–6+ years of experience in Data Science, Risk Analytics, Credit Risk, or related analytical roles
- At least 2 years of hands-on experience developing or validating credit risk models or other predictive risk models
- Strong proficiency in Python and SQL
- Experience with Databricks or similar cloud-based analytics platforms
- Experience developing predictive models using scikit-learn, LightGBM, XGBoost, PyTorch, or equivalent tools
- Understanding of the full model lifecycle, including development, validation, backtesting, monitoring, recalibration, and documentation
- Strong understanding of credit risk analytics, including delinquency, default, vintage analysis, roll rates, bad rates, portfolio performance, discrimination, calibration, and stability
- Experience with large financial or transactional datasets and strong commitment to data quality and integrity
- Ability to translate quantitative analysis into credit strategies and business recommendations
- Working proficiency in English and Spanish
- Academic background in Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Engineering, Computer Science, Actuarial Science, Data Science, or a related quantitative field
- Ability to work in a fast-moving environment and collaborate across Risk, Data, Engineering, and business teams
- Experience in fintech, lending, credit cards, payments, or B2B financial products
- Experience with Latin American credit markets, particularly Mexico, Brazil, or Colombia
- Knowledge of credit bureau data and alternative data sources
- Experience with PD modeling, expected loss, ECL, LGD, or EAD methodologies
- Experience with reject inference or modeling under selection bias
- Experience defining credit line strategies, cutoffs, risk segmentation, or underwriting policies
- Experience with MLflow, model registries, version control, and reproducible ML workflows
- Experience with Git and GitHub
- Knowledge of data engineering concepts and ETL/data pipelines
- Experience taking models from development through implementation in partnership with Engineering
- Experience with visualization or BI tools such as Metabase
- Master’s degree in Statistics, Data Science, Machine Learning, Economics, Finance, or a related quantitative field
Clara Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Clara and has not been reviewed or approved by Clara.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are emphasized across several descriptions, with stock options commonly included and in some instances available from day one. Feedback suggests this ownership component is a meaningful part of total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off offerings are portrayed as flexible, including references to flexible vacation and flexible time off policies. Feedback suggests this supports work–life balance for many roles.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellness support is cited through mental‑health platforms, coaching and meditation programs, and monthly wellness reimbursements in some contexts. Feedback suggests these offerings complement core benefits where available.
Clara Insights
What We Do
Clara is the leading payment platform for companies in Latin America. Our end-to-end solution includes our locally-issued corporate cards, Bill Pay, crossborder payments, and our highly-rated software platform used by thousands of the most successful companies across the region. Clara is backed by top global and regional investors such as Coatue, DST Global, General Catalyst, monashees, Kaszek, Canary, A*, BoxGroup, SV Angel, GFC, Picus Capital, Avid Ventures, ICONIQ Growth, Goldman Sachs, and prominent angel investors. Driven by our six core values (Ownership, Pride, ABC, Simplicity, Clarity and Inclusivity) we’ve reached a unicorn valuation in record time, have been recognized as a Great Place to Work and as one of the most promising startups according to Linkedin’s ranking “Top Startups 2021”. We’re looking for the best talent worldwide to join our team and be part of this journey, so you can't afford to miss this chance! We are: * Shaping business finances in Latin America * Driven by our 6 core values * Proud of our inclusive and caring culture * Certified as a Great Place to Work and a Top LinkedIn Startup
