About Highnote

Founded in 2020 by a team of leaders from Braintree, PayPal, and Lending Club, Highnote is an embedded finance company that sets the standard in modern card platform management. As an all-in-one card issuer processor and program management platform, we provide digital-first organizations with the flexibility to seamlessly issue and process payment cards, embed virtual and physical card payments, and integrate ledger and wallet functionalities—empowering businesses to drive growth and profitability.

We’ve raised $145M+ and have grown our team to 125+ employees. Headquartered in San Francisco, we’ve managed to build one of the most advanced payments teams in the industry, with team members in 25+ US states.

Operating through our core values of customer obsession, executional excellence, intentional inclusion, we’re helping businesses grow for the future by creating the payment products demanded by tomorrow, with the ability to solve for use cases that don’t exist yet.

We are fast-moving, hands-on, and strongly believe everyone deserves a seat at the table. We believe we’re unlocking incredible opportunities that can change the future of payments, as long as we have the right people to make it happen.

The Opportunity:

Highnote is looking for a KYC Analyst to join our risk operations efforts. This is an opportunity to bring your prior experience and toolkit to an early-stage company where you will work cross-functionally to help our risk operations. Ideal candidates will have similar experience in ambiguous environments, fulfilling a variety of roles, along with a knowledge of the USA PATRIOT Act, OFAC, BSA/Anti-Money Laundering principles, Know Your Business and Know Your Customer processes, fraud investigations, and regulatory requirements for bank, card, or similar industries.

What you’ll need to be wildly successful:

• Focus on quality while maintaining high-quantity output. This role requires an individual who can tackle problems and queues efficiently, while still maintaining a high-level of accuracy needed for risk-related matters. A solid risk operations knowledge base in a fintech related field and to say “you learn quickly” is a gross understatement.
• Maintain a strong and healthy sense of curiosity. You have a desire to understand the root-cause to any problem, evaluate explanations provided, and perform due diligence to validate your understanding. This spans across all aspects of your work, from reviewing new applications, to investigating leads, and verifying suspicious behavior understanding that the findings can have serious implications.
• Empathy for customers and an ability to glean insights from customer communication and behaviors. You have an innate ability to feel the customer’s pain while balancing the risk and regulatory requirements to process payments. You can articulate the why behind the what with clarity and defend your position without disclosing confidential details. You can quickly identify genuine concerns and potentially suspicious behaviors from answers customers share. You act as a teacher helping others understand the risk requirements.
• Ability to assess the big picture with a refined detail-oriented approach. You are able to contribute risk requirements to enterprise-wide initiatives while not losing sight of the day-to-day needs and team operations.
• Advocate for the teams you work with and service. This role is heavily risk and compliance-oriented. You can demonstrate the value of your products and initiatives.
• Self-awareness is key. You have a strong sense of self, know your strengths and where you have blind spots that you want to improve. You position yourself to make the most of your superpowers and shore up your weaknesses.

What you’ll be doing:

• Perform Know Your Business and Know Your Customer reviews on new card applications in accordance with the Customer Identification Program requirements to verify accuracy and intent, ensuring the account is obtained in a secure manner.
• Verify the application details and documents provided to ensure they meet the criteria outlined in the policies and are valid and legitimate.
• Conduct enhanced due diligence on applications where required.
• Assess ongoing risk and due diligence needs for newly onboarded customers, abiding by enterprise policies.
• Document decisions with supporting evidence and capture risk mitigation actions taken.
• Accurately complete referrals for Suspicious Activity Reporting.
• Ability to identify root causes of potential risks and develop effective solutions.

Bonus Qualifications:

• 2+ years of experience on a risk team with a focus on BSA/AML principles, fraud investigations, and suspicious activity reporting
• CAMS, CFE, and/or CFCS certification
• Experience with SQL and BigQuery
• Awareness of regulatory obligations for card-issuing platforms
• Experience in working in risk at a Bank or other financial institution
• Successful under pressure and with shortened deadlines
• Demonstrated success in developing inventive solutions to complex problems
• Ability to work second shift (11am-7pm CT)

Why Highnote?

• We’re a startup that allows for our employees to truly build from the ground up and impact every layer of our organization.
• We’re a team of payments obsessed individuals. While some of us come from the fintech world, some of us don’t. We value the varied backgrounds and the diverse perspectives of our employees.
• We’re small on hierarchy and big on growth. We’re a flat organization that allows everyone to have direct exposure to our leadership team. We are looking for builders who thrive in ambiguity.
• We’re backed by Oak HC/FT, Costanoa Ventures, Adams Street Partners, Westcap, and Pinegrove Venture Partners. Angel Investors include Bill Ready (CEO at Pinterest) and Renaud Laplanche (Co-Founder & CEO of Upgrade).

Highnote benefits

• Flexible Paid Time Off
• 100% healthcare coverage + 75% coverage for dependents
• 401k program
• Paid Parental Leave: Up to 16 weeks paid leave for the birth parent, and up to 6 weeks paid leave for the non-birth parent
• Equity in Highnote
• Stipend to build out your home office; internet and phone reimbursement
• At Highnote we have built a total rewards philosophy that includes fair, equitable, geo-based compensation that is performance and potential based. Our compensation packages are competitive based on robust market research and are a combination of a cash salary, equity, and benefits. In compliance with the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, the annual salary range for applicants is $65,000-$85,000.

Highnote is a diverse and inclusive company committed to growing a diverse and inclusive team. We invite people from all backgrounds and identities to apply. We do not discriminate based on gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, national origin, citizenship, disability, pregnancy status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by US federal state or local laws, or the laws of the country or jurisdiction where you work. Additionally, we encourage everyone to share which pronouns you wish for us to use when addressing you (i.e.: she/her, he/him, they/them, etc).