Senior Data Scientist

Why PlayStation?

PlayStation isn’t just the Best Place to Play — it’s also the Best Place to Work. Today, we’re recognized as a global leader in entertainment producing The PlayStation family of products and services including PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®VR, PlayStation®Plus, acclaimed PlayStation software titles from PlayStation Studios, and more.

PlayStation also strives to create an inclusive environment that empowers employees and embraces diversity. We welcome and encourage everyone who has a passion and curiosity for innovation, technology, and play to explore our open positions and join our growing global team.

The PlayStation brand falls under Sony Interactive Entertainment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation.

Senior Data Scientist
San Diego, CA (remote considered, west coast hours) 

Who We Are

At Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) – better known as PlayStation – we power billions of digital transactions for millions of gamers across the globe. Behind every seamless store interaction is a network of systems designed for trust, security, and scale.

The Store Publishing Operations & Commerce (SPOC) team sits at the heart of this ecosystem. Our mission is to deliver safe, frictionless experiences across PlayStation's digital storefront by blending machine learning, real-time analytics, and risk management. We tackle fraud, optimize payment flows, and protect the integrity of our platform—all while enabling the business to grow and players to thrive.  You will  be part of a team that’s pioneering the future of safe digital commerce. You’ll have the autonomy to solve challenging problems, the backing of a globally recognized brand, and the opportunity to make an impact at scale.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Senior Data Scientist with a strong background in fraud detection and risk analytics, ideally in tech, e-commerce, or digital payments. In this role, you’ll work at the intersection of data science, finance, and security, using advanced ML to uncover fraud patterns, assess risk, and build real-time defenses that scale across our global network.

This is more than a modeling role—you’ll shape our fraud prevention strategy, design robust experiments, and partner with engineering, payments, and compliance teams to drive innovation across the digital commerce stack.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the development of fraud and risk detection models, from ideation through deployment, using supervised, unsupervised, and anomaly detection techniques.

• Build real-time machine learning solutions that mitigate fraud at scale and continuously adapt to emerging threat patterns.

• Collaborate with engineering and risk partners to improve real-time inference infrastructure and signal quality.

• Design and execute A/B tests and causal inference studies to validate product and risk mitigation strategies.

• Analyze transaction data to identify behavioral trends and optimize business metrics (e.g., conversion, chargebacks, false positives).

• Improve experimentation frameworks and build tools to evaluate model impact rigorously and transparently.

• Serve as a strategic thought partner to finance, security, and product leaders, translating complex data into clear, actionable insights.

What We’re Looking For

• Master’s or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, or a related field.

• 5+ years of experience in data science and machine learning, with a strong focus on fraud detection, risk modeling, or trust & safety.

• Deep fluency in causal inference, anomaly detection, supervised/unsupervised learning, and real-time modeling.

• Proficient in Python (Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn) and SQL for large-scale data analysis and model development.

• Proven track record of designing and interpreting controlled experiments and A/B tests in production environments.

• Strong communication skills and ability to translate data science solutions to non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to Have

• Experience with graph-based fraud detection, deep learning for risk, or adversarial ML.

• Prior work in payments, fintech, or high-volume e-commerce environments.

• Passion for PlayStation and the gaming industry.

Equal Opportunity Statement:

Sony is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All persons will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender (including gender identity, gender expression and gender reassignment), race (including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, marital or civil partnership status, disability, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy, maternity or parental status, trade union membership or membership in any other legally protected category.

We strive to create an inclusive environment, empower employees and embrace diversity. We encourage everyone to respond. 

PlayStation is a Fair Chance employer and qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered for employment.