Senior Model Risk Manager
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Job Description
Earnest empowers ambitious professionals to make confident financial decisions and build the life they envision.
Earnies are committed to helping borrowers move forward with confidence by offering smarter borrowing options with a clearer path to taking control of their debt. If you’re as passionate as we are about our mission, read more below, and let’s build something great together.
The Sr Model Risk Manager will report to the Head of Credit Risk.
As the Sr Model Risk Manager, you will:
- Own and evolve Earnest’s Model Risk Management framework, ensuring our credit, loss forecasting, fraud, marketing, and finance models are rigorous, transparent, and built to scale responsibly.Lead independent end-to-end model validations — from conceptual soundness and data quality to performance monitoring and implementation review — delivering thoughtful, constructive challenge to modeling teams.
- Partner closely with Data Science and Risk leaders early in the model design process to strengthen assumptions, improve methodology, and elevate modeling standards across the company.
- Oversee model performance monitoring and proactively identify emerging risks, performance drift, or control gaps — ensuring timely, practical remediation.
- Deliver clear, decision-ready validation reports and communicate technical findings in a way that drives strong business outcomes and sound risk decisions.
- Serve as a trusted advisor on model governance, helping Earnest move fast while maintaining the discipline and controls required of a best-in-class lending platform.
About You:
- You hold a Master’s degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Mathematics, Financial Engineering, or similar) with 7+ years of experience in model development, validation, or model risk management in financial services (or a Bachelor’s degree with 10+ years of relevant experience).
- You’ve worked in consumer or small business lending — ideally in a fintech or innovative banking environment — and understand the models that power modern credit decisioning.
- You have hands-on experience with statistical and machine learning models and are comfortable diving into Python code and large datasets using SQL to independently assess model performance.
- You understand regulatory model risk expectations and know how to apply them pragmatically in a high-growth environment.
- You bring strong judgment, intellectual independence, and the confidence to challenge assumptions while building productive cross-functional partnerships.
- You can translate complex modeling concepts into clear, actionable insights for senior stakeholders.
Even Better:
- Experience with personal loans or student lending products.
- Experience interacting with auditors or regulators in model risk or credit oversight contexts.
- Experience reviewing third-party or vendor models.
- Experience building or maturing a model governance framework at a scaling fintech company.
#LI-KB
A little about our pay philosophy: We take pride in compensating our employees fairly and equitably. We are showcasing a range of your potential base salary based on the roles location. The successful candidate’s starting pay will also be determined based on job-related qualifications, internal compensation, candidate location and budget. This range may be modified in the future.
Earnest believes in enabling our employees to live their best lives. We offer a variety of perks and competitive benefits, including:
- Health, Dental, & Vision benefits plus savings plans
- Mac computers + work-from-home stipend to set up your home office
- Monthly internet and phone reimbursement
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
- 401(k) plan to help you save for retirement plus a company match
- Robust tuition reimbursement program
- $1,000 travel perk on each Earnie-versary to anywhere in the world
- Competitive days of annual PTO
- Competitive parental leave
What Makes an Earnie:
At Earnest, our people bring our cultural principles to life. These principles define how we work, how we win, and what we expect of ourselves and each other:
- Every Second Counts: Speed is our competitive advantage. Our customers need better solutions, and the faster we execute, the greater our chance of success.
- Choose To Do Hard Things: We win by tackling the hard things that others avoid, fueled by grit and resilience.
- Pursue Excellence: Great companies, teams, and individuals never settle and are proud of the work that they do. What’s good enough today won’t be good enough tomorrow. Excellence isn’t a destination; it’s a mindset of continuous improvement.
- Lead Together: Our success comes from how we work together. Leadership is not about titles—it is about action. We take ownership, drive results, and move forward as a team.
- Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously: We take our work seriously, not ourselves. The stakes are high, but a sense of humor keeps us grounded, creative, and resilient.
At Earnest, we are committed to building an environment where our employees feel included, valued, and heard. Our belief is that a strong commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging enables us to move forward with our mission. We are dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team and encourage anyone to apply if your experience is close to what we are looking for.
Earnest provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or genetics. Qualified applicants with criminal histories will be considered for the position in a manner consistent with the Fair Chance Ordinance.
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience in model development, validation, or model risk management in financial services
- Master's degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Mathematics, Financial Engineering, or similar)
- Hands-on experience with statistical and machine learning models
- Ability to independently assess model performance using Python code and large datasets
- Understanding of regulatory model risk expectations and ability to apply them pragmatically in a high-growth environment
- Strong judgment, intellectual independence, and confidence to challenge assumptions
- Ability to translate complex modeling concepts into clear, actionable insights for senior stakeholders
Benefits
- 401k Matching
- Flexible Hours
- Health Insurance
- Home Office Budget
- Learning Budget
- Paid Time Off
- Remote Work
Skills
Ready to Apply?
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