Senior Model Risk Validation Specialist - Financial Crimes

About this role:

Wells Fargo’s Model Risk Management (MRM) organization is seeking a highly qualified person to join its Decision Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) Group as a Senior Quantitative Analytics Specialist (Senior Assistant Vice President) The responsibilities of the DSAI Group include an end-to-end responsibility of managing the model risk over the model lifecycle including risk tiering, validation, and performance monitoring, etc.. In this specific position, the analyst shall focus on models built in house and by third parties primarily for the purpose of Financial Crimes, Fair Lending and other Compliance models.

• MRM operates in a fast-paced work environment with continuously changing policies and technologies.  The successful candidate is expected:

• To be self- motivated, require minimal supervision, and produce work that is consistent with MRM’s recognized high standards.  

• To lead the validation projects and coach junior team members. 

• To be familiar with analytical data and sampling plans, various modeling frameworks, model replications, model performance assessments, test model development, model monitoring, and provide effective challenge to lines of business.  

• To develop reusable code and libraries to accelerate Financial Crimes model validation.

• To be practiced in writing detailed standard analytical reports to ensure Wells Fargo’s compliance with governance policies and regulations.

• To communicate with stakeholders, regulators, and auditors independently. 

• To be proficient with MRM framework and procedure. 

In this role, you will:

• Perform highly complex activities related to creation, implementation, and documentation

• Use highly complex statistical theory to quantify, analyze and manage markets

• Forecast losses and compute capital requirements providing insights, regarding a wide array of business initiatives

• Utilize structured securities and provide expertise on theory and mathematics behind the data

• Manage market, credit, and operational risks to forecast losses and compute capital requirements

• Participate in the discussion related to analytical strategies, modeling and forecasting methods

• Identify structure to influence global assessments, inclusive of technical, audit and market perspectives

• Collaborate and consult with regulators, auditors and individuals that are technically oriented and have excellent communication skills

Required Qualifications:

• 4+ years of Quantitative Analytics experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education

• Master's degree or higher in a quantitative discipline such as mathematics, statistics, engineering, physics, economics, or computer science

Desired Qualifications:

• A PhD in statistics, economics, computer science, optimization, electrical engineering, or a related quantitative discipline

• In-depth knowledge of ML methodologies such as ensemble algorithms, neural networks, supervised and unsupervised learning to identify weaknesses, recommend improvements, and document findings in detailed validation reports.

• In-depth knowledge of Financial Crimes, Fair Lending, and other Compliance models.

• Ability to Conduct independent validation of financial crime detection models, including BSA/AML transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and detection systems, ensuring compliance with regulatory expectations and internal governance standards.

• Strong computing and programming background and knowledge of one or more languages such as Python and Java

• Experience with ML/AI computing platforms and tools 

• Ability to work with large datasets and some experience in database management and tools such as Hadoop, Spark and SQL

• Proficiency in software development

• Ability to take initiative and work independently in a structured environment.

• Excellent writing and communication skills for documentation and presentations to audiences of all technical backgrounds

• Strong conceptual and quantitative problem-solving skills and demonstrated ability to contribute independently; and

• Ability to work in cross-organizational projects and collaborate with model developers, compliance teams, and risk management stakeholders to ensure timely remediation of validation findings and maintain timely remediation of validation findings and maintain robus