Senior Director, Research and Detection

The Research & Detection organization at HUMAN is dedicated to protecting the Internet by disrupting the economics of cybercrime. We design, build, and operate large-scale detection systems that distinguish real humans from sophisticated bots, fraud & abuse to instill trust in the customer journey.

We are looking for an experienced and hands-on Leader for our Sightline Research & Detection team to lead a team of data scientists, data researchers, and security researchers who own the core detection and analytics capabilities behind HUMAN’s Sightline product. This role sits at the intersection of data, security, and product, and is critical to our long‑term detection strategy. You bring a deep understanding of how the Internet and modern browsers work and, ideally, a track record as a hands‑on fraud fighter.

What You'll Do

• Own our core detection KPIs and overall efficacy for Sightline Cyber Defense (e.g., precision, recall), driving continuous improvement, clear trade-offs, and transparent reporting on these metrics.
• Own the detection strategy for Sightline Cyber Defense, shaping how we use data, modeling, and experimentation to stay ahead of adversaries by creating asymmetrical advantages.
• Lead and grow a high-performing team of data scientists, data researchers, and security researchers, with a focus on hiring, mentoring, career development, and clear expectations.
• Drive end‑to‑end detection projects from hypothesis and exploratory analysis through modeling, offline validation, and production deployment in real‑time systems.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering to prioritize roadmaps, translate customer problems into detection work, and deliver measurable impact.
• Integrate Data Science into production systems, working with Engineering to design scalable data pipelines, model serving, and monitoring for billions of daily events.
• Raise the bar on detection quality by setting standards and best practices for precision/recall trade‑offs, adaptation resilience, and long‑term maintainability.
• Foster a healthy, inclusive team culture aligned with HUMAN’s values: Lead With Humanity, Honor the Customer Journey, Unleash Our Potential, Move As One, Act With Purpose, and Navigate with Speed.
  
  

Who You Are

• Detection & adversarial mindset: You are motivated by adversarial domains (fraud, abuse, security, risk, integrity, or similar), ideally with prior experience as a hands‑on fraud fighter or bot hunter, and you understand how attackers adapt to defenses and the underlying economics of abuse.
• People leader: You have a strong track record of managing and growing senior individual contributors and/or managers in Data Science, ML, or adjacent technical fields.
• Applied Data Science leader: You’ve led teams that productionize models and data‑driven systems at scale, not just proof‑of‑concept analytics.-
• Technically credible: You can dive into details of modeling choices, data quality, and system design, and you are comfortable reviewing analysis, code, and metrics when needed. You have a strong mental model of how the Internet works end‑to‑end (DNS, TCP/IP, HTTP, TLS, CDNs) and how modern browsers execute and expose behavior (DOM, JavaScript, cookies, fingerprints, automation frameworks).
• Product‑oriented: You are adept at turning ambiguous business and customer problems into clear detection and analytics work, with well‑defined success metrics.
• Excellent communicator: You can explain complex technical topics to executives and customers, and you can align diverse stakeholders around a clear plan.
• Bias for impact: You optimize for meaningful, measurable outcomes (e.g., improved recall, reduced FPs, better customer experience) rather than purely academic solutions.
• Culture carrier: You care deeply about psychological safety, feedback, coaching, and building a team that others are excited to work with.
• Experience shipping models or algorithms into production in high‑scale environments (e.g.,
• security, risk/fraud, identity, or other adversarial, enterprise-scale domains).
• Strong proficiency with Python and SQL, and familiarity with modern data/ML tooling (e.g. GCP,
• BigQuery, Snowflake).
• Demonstrated experience working with large‑scale, raw datasets and designing robust metrics and evaluation frameworks, especially for web/app traffic (e.g., HTTP logs, headers, cookies, browser fingerprints, device/identity signals) in adversarial or noisy environments.
• Proven ability to hire, develop, and retain senior technical talent in competitive markets.
• Experience working cross‑functionally with Product, Engineering, and Customer‑facing teams.
  
  

Nice To Have

• Prior work in bot/agent detection and fraud/abuse (e.g., fighting payment fraud, account takeover, ad fraud, or similar high‑stakes abuse), ideally with time spent directly investigating incidents and building or tuning detection systems.
• Experience with time series, anomaly detection, or other techniques commonly used in detection systems.
• Experience leading or collaborating on Agentic or AI‑assisted analysis/detection initiatives.
  
  

About HUMAN Security

HUMAN was founded in a Brooklyn sci-fi bookstore with a hacker mindset and the lofty mission of making the internet safer by putting humans first. Today, our Human Defense Platform safeguards enterprises from sophisticated bots, fraud, and account abuse, verifying the humanity of more than 20 trillion interactions per week for the world’s biggest brands and internet platforms.

HUMAN is an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to protecting the internet's integrity for everyone. We believe in putting people first, embracing diversity of thought from our global teams, and welcoming all individuals to share their unique experiences as we fight cybercrime together. We support our Humans with a comprehensive total rewards package for personal and professional development, including well-being and learning stipends, flexible work options, and dedicated time off. While our HQ is in NYC, we have teams worldwide.

HUMAN is growing fast, and there’s never been a more meaningful time to join us. If you thrive on solving complex problems and want to help shape the future of cybersecurity, join us as we build a safer, more human internet.

If you are an individual with a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact us directly.