Western Union

Director, Product – Payments Analytics, Data Decisioning

Western Union

full-time

Posted on:

Location Type: Hybrid

Location: New York City • Colorado, New York, Texas • 🇺🇸 United States

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Salary

💰 $160,000 - $250,000 per year

Job Level

Lead

Tech Stack

AirflowPythonSQL

About the role

  • Own analytics strategy and insights for global payments performance, including success rates, cost per transaction, partner performance, and operational efficiency.
  • Lead data-driven experimentation and optimization efforts related to payment method selection, routing, retry strategies, and settlement flows.
  • Develop dashboards and frameworks to track KPIs, support product and finance decisions, and monitor trends across markets.
  • Build and deploy models that inform routing, retry logic, and payment prioritization based on factors such as cost, speed, method availability, and past performance.
  • Design decisioning frameworks that use transaction-level intelligence to optimize throughput and customer outcomes.
  • Partner with Product and Engineering (and Chief Data Officer function) to integrate models and business rules into real-time decisioning infrastructure.
  • Define the data architecture and requirements to enable comprehensive, accurate, and scalable payments data pipelines.
  • Work with Data Engineering to ensure high-quality structured datasets that power both real-time and offline analytics.
  • Establish a unified data model across payment types (cards, bank transfers, wallets, etc.) and regions.
  • Act as the primary data science partner to the Payments Product team, contributing to roadmap planning and product strategy.
  • Collaborate with Engineering, Operations, Finance, and Partner Management to align insights with business goals.
  • Build, manage, and mentor a team of data scientists and analysts focused on payment analytics.

Requirements

  • 8+ years of experience in data science or advanced analytics, with at least 3 years in a leadership capacity.
  • Deep knowledge of the payments ecosystem—cards, bank transfers, real-time payments, wallets, and alternative payment methods.
  • Strong SQL and Python skills, with hands-on experience in predictive modeling, experimentation, and A/B testing.
  • Demonstrated ability to deliver measurable impact through data in large-scale, global product or platform environments.
  • Exceptional communication skills and comfort working across technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Preferred: Experience with remittances, cross-border payments, or multi-region payment platforms.
  • Familiarity with the economics and mechanics of payment processing (authorization flows, success rate drivers, cost levers).
  • Experience with modern data tooling (e.g., Snowflake, dbt, Bedrock/ Dataiku/ other ML Platforms, Airflow, Looker, Mode).
  • Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Economics, or related quantitative field.
Benefits
  • Short-term incentives
  • Multiple health insurance options
  • Accident and life insurance
  • Access to best-in-class development platforms
  • Flexible Time off
  • Medical, Dental and Life Insurance
  • Tuition Assistance Program
  • Parental Leave
  • One day volunteer time off
  • $0 Money Transfer Fee Discount Code – Quarterly Recognition Program
  • "Game Changers" Employee Discount Program
  • Global Adoption Assistance
  • Global Scholarship Awards Program
  • 4% Western Union Contribution to 401K

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard skills
data scienceadvanced analyticsSQLPythonpredictive modelingexperimentationA/B testingdata architecturedata pipelinesdata modeling
Soft skills
leadershipcommunicationcollaborationmentoringstrategic planningproblem-solvinganalytical thinkinginterpersonal skillsadaptabilitydecision-making
Certifications
MS in Data SciencePhD in Data ScienceMS in StatisticsMS in Computer ScienceMS in Economics