Senior CDD Risk Analyst, Direct Customer Onboarding

Location: Chicago / San Francisco

This is Adyen

Adyen provides payments, data, and financial products in a single solution for customers like Meta, Uber, H&M, and Microsoft - making us the financial technology platform of choice. At Adyen, everything we do is engineered for ambition.

For our teams, we create an environment with opportunities for our people to succeed, backed by the culture and support to ensure they are enabled to truly own their careers. We are motivated individuals who tackle unique technical challenges at scale and solve them as a team. Together, we deliver innovative and ethical solutions that help businesses achieve their ambitions faster.

CDD Direct Customer Onboarding Team

Our Direct Customer Onboarding (CDD) team is seeking an experienced Senior CDD Risk Analyst with a strong compliance background and deep CDD expertise. In this role, your core focus centers on two key pillars: leading quality improvements (and quality control processes sign-offs) and directly managing high-complexity enterprise onboarding cases. Additionally, you will serve as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) and mentor, actively helping to upskill the team while collaborating cross-functionally with Quality Assurance, Compliance, and Commercial teams to streamline our onboarding process while safeguarding Adyen through strict regulatory compliance.

What You’ll Do

• Complex Merchant Onboarding & Collaborative Problem-Solving: Autonomously lead the onboarding process for Adyen’s most strategic and complex enterprise merchants. Conduct multi-jurisdictional due diligence, dissecting opaque corporate structures, and mitigating risks associated with PEPs, sanctions, adverse media, and high-risk industries.
• Regulatory Interpretation & Policy Alignment: Translate complex second-line compliance policies into actionable first-line operational procedures and lead calibration sessions to ensure consistent application across the team.
• Uphold Quality & Consistency: Maintain "First-Time-Right" accuracy, perform regular quality control checks for the team, upskill team members on quality standards, ensure accurate risk reasoning, follow SOPs strictly, and maintain high-quality decision-making across all casework.
• Process Optimization & Tooling Innovation: Proactively identify operational bottlenecks, redundancies, and friction points across the end-to-end merchant lifecycle. Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Compliance, and Operations to optimize workflows, improve tooling capabilities, and automate manual controls, streamlining the onboarding experience while maintaining robust regulatory safeguards.
• Merchant & Commercial Partnership: Partner with Commercial, Sales, and Account Management teams during high-stakes negotiations and merchant escalations. Rather than managing processes solely via tickets, actively participate in merchant and commercial calls to understand their business setups firsthand, clearly explain compliance requirements, and design practical, compliant pathways to successful onboarding while balancing regulatory integrity with business growth.
• Team Mentorship: Mentor a cohort of CDD analysts, acting as a go-to expert for complex case guidance and fostering a culture of proactive risk ownership. Develop and lead training sessions to upskill the team on emerging risk typologies and regulatory changes.

Who You Are

• Experience: 6+ years experience in CDD, KYC/EDD operations or Second Line Risk or Compliance role within a FinTech, Payment Service provider, or Financial Institution. Prior experience as a Quality Checker or QA auditor in 1st/2nd Line functions is preferred.
• Complex Risk & Regulatory Depth: Proven mastery in evaluating complex risk scenarios beyond standard checklists. You bring deep experience navigating challenges such as layered corporate structures, offshore/nominee entities, UBO transparency, high-risk business models, scheme rules, and multi-jurisdictional AML/CFT standards (e.g. DNB, FCA, FinCEN, MAS, RBI, AUSTRAC).
• Commercial Maturity & Pragmatism: Proven track record of navigating complex commercial dynamics and high-pressure go-live targets without compromising risk controls. Skilled at negotiating and implementing concrete risk-mitigation solutions that enable safe business growth while satisfying strict regulatory mandates.
• Merchant-Facing & Direct Customer Engagement: Experienced in direct customer interactions and merchant-facing roles, effectively bridging complex compliance requirements with commercial discussions and operational needs.
• Data Rigor & Continuous Improvement: Analytical mindset proficient in leveraging data and analytics to identify root causes of onboarding friction, contributing directly to automation and tooling enhancements.
• Autonomous & Strong Team Mentality: High autonomy, resilience, and clear written and verbal communication skills. Eager to share knowledge, coach colleagues, and collaborate seamlessly across operational, second line and commercial teams.
• Nice to Have: Financial Product & Issuing Background: Experience with and understanding of financial products and/or issuing, such as business bank accounts, card issuing, and capital. You can assess how a merchant’s business model, funds flows, and product structure translate into risk, and apply that knowledge to onboarding decisions and risk mitigation.

Total rewards & compensation

The annual base salary range for this role in San Francisco is $119,000 - $154,000.

The annual base salary range for this role in Chicago is $100,000 - $130,000.

Compensation is based on factors including qualifications, experience, and location. Total compensation package includes equity (RSUs), 401(k), health, dental, vision, and more.

In-office expectations

This role is based in our San Francisco or Chicago office. We're an office-first company and expect employees to work in-office at least 3 days a week on average. This approach helps strike a balance between bringing people together for in-person collaboration and learning from each other, while also supporting flexibility.

What’s next?

Ensuring a smooth and enjoyable candidate experience is critical for us. We aim to get back to you regarding your application within 5 business days. Our interview process tends to take about 4 weeks to complete, but may fluctuate depending on the role. If you have specific time constraints, please communicate them with your recruiter, and we’ll do our best to accommodate them where possible.

Work Eligibility

You must be work authorized in the United States without the need for new visa sponsorship. The company can support visa transfers but will not sponsor individuals for H-1B CAP applications.