SAM Technical & Functional Lead

SAM Technical & Functional Lead
Location: NYC
Duration: 9-12 Month

JD

The SAM (Suspicious Activity Monitoring) Implementation Tech team is responsible for the setup, integration, and ongoing enhancement of NICE Actimize SAM systems. The SAM Technical & Functional Lead will own end-to-end delivery across requirements, design, build, testing, and production support partnering with business stakeholders, compliance/AML teams, data engineers, and developers. This is a hands-on role that combines functional leadership with strong technical execution (Python, ETL, SQL, and modern AI-assisted tooling) and the ability to manage and mentor a small team.

Responsibilities:

• Lead end-to-end technical and functional delivery for AML Actimize SAM and ActOne implementations and enhancements.
• Partner with business/AML stakeholders to translate regulatory and operational needs into clear functional specifications, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Manage and mentor a small team of developers/analysts; provide technical direction, code reviews, and delivery planning.
• Implement and maintain Actimize SAM models, rule evaluations, scenarios, and alert workflows; oversee model tuning and calibration activities.
• Design, build, and optimize ETL/data pipelines feeding SAM (batch and/or near real-time), ensuring data quality, lineage, and reconciliation controls.
• Develop and automate data analysis and operational tasks using Python (e.g., validation, profiling, alert analysis, reporting, tooling).
• Write and optimize complex SQL for investigations, model calibration, data checks, and performance troubleshooting; demonstrate strong understanding of Actimize/UDM table structures.
• Leverage AI tools (e.g., code assistants, document/requirements summarization, test generation) responsibly to improve delivery speed and quality.
• Drive DevOps and release practices (Git-based version control, CI/CD where applicable, environment management).
• Own stakeholder communications, RAID management, documentation, and governance across delivery and BAU support.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of overall experience in AML/financial crime technology delivery, with 5+ years of hands-on NICE Actimize SAM implementation/support experience (including AIS/UDM table structures).
• Strong understanding of Actimize SAM models, scenarios/rules, alert workflows, and model tuning/calibration concepts.
• Expert-level SQL and strong database fundamentals; able to troubleshoot performance and data issues across large datasets.
• Hands-on Python proficiency for automation, data analysis, and tooling; experience with common libraries (e.g., pandas) preferred.
• Strong ETL/data engineering experience (source-to-target mapping, transformations, controls, reconciliation); exposure to cloud data platforms is a plus.
• Experience using AI tools to accelerate delivery (e.g., code assistants, test generation, documentation summarization) with appropriate data/privacy controls.
• Proven lead experience (small team management/mentoring) with strong stakeholder engagement, requirement analysis, and communication skills; Git and modern IDEs (e.g., Visual Studio/VS Code) desirable.