Senior Transaction Monitoring Analyst

About Astra

Astra is building mission-critical infrastructure for moving money at scale. Our platform processes billions in annual transaction volume with 99.9%+ uptime, powering real-time transfers, bank debits, card disbursements, and complex financial compliance systems. We provide APIs and automation tools that enable businesses to move money programmatically while maintaining strict regulatory requirements.

The Role

Astra is an instant-payments platform powering developers and product teams across banking, BaaS, payroll, lending, crypto, and other financial services. We're hiring a Senior Transaction Monitoring Analyst to build, operate, and improve our transaction monitoring program.

You'll design and tune monitoring rules, analyze payment activity, investigate escalated alerts, and prepare suspicious activity referrals to our sponsor banks. This is a hands-on role for someone who pairs financial crimes expertise with technical skill: comfortable working directly in transaction data and able to independently disposition complex cases. You'll report to the Head of Compliance and work closely with Product, Engineering, and Operations.

What You’ll Do

Design and Implement Transaction Monitoring Rules

• Design, build, test, and maintain monitoring rules across ACH, RTP, FedNow, debit networks, and other payment rails.

• Develop risk-based scenarios for typologies such as structuring, velocity anomalies, and rapid movement of funds, and close gaps in coverage.

• Translate financial crimes risks into monitoring logic and thresholds, configuring rules with Product and Engineering as needed.

• Backtest and tune rules to improve detection and reduce false positives.

• Document each rule's rationale, configuration, testing results, and change history.

Manage Transaction Monitoring Alerts and Investigations

• Investigate potentially suspicious transactions and customer activity using transaction histories, customer data, and other sources.

• Document findings and dispositions with clear investigative narratives and recommendations.

• Prepare and submit suspicious activity referrals to sponsor banks, coordinating with the Head of Compliance.

• Respond to sponsor-bank requests for information and support follow-up reviews.

• Track alert volumes, backlogs, and case aging to keep operations timely.

• Feed investigation insights back into rules, scenarios, and workflows.

Analyze Transaction Data and Optimize Monitoring

• Use SQL and other tools to query transaction data and evaluate monitoring performance.

• Analyze activity across customers, rails, and use cases to identify emerging risks and coverage gaps.

• Report on alert volumes, false-positive rates, rule performance, and investigation outcomes.

• Recommend changes to thresholds, scenarios, and segmentation as products and customers evolve.

Partner Across the Business

• Work with Product and Engineering on new monitoring capabilities, data availability, and case management workflows.

• Partner with Compliance and Operations on complex investigations, emerging risks, and escalation procedures.

• Support sponsor-bank inquiries, audits, and examinations with documentation and analysis.

• Define monitoring requirements for new products and payment flows before launch.

• Improve internal compliance tooling through automation and operational feedback.

What We’re Looking For

Required Experience

• 4+ years in BSA/AML, financial crimes compliance, or transaction monitoring within fintech, payments, or banking.

• Hands-on experience designing, implementing, and tuning monitoring rules — not just reviewing alerts.

• Track record of independently conducting complex investigations and escalating suspicious activity.

• Strong command of BSA/AML requirements, financial crimes typologies, and risk-based monitoring.

• Working knowledge of payment rails, particularly ACH, RTP, and debit networks.

• Experience managing alert queues while maintaining quality and timeliness.

• Comfortable working independently and cross-functionally in a fast-paced environment, with rigorous attention to detail and documentation.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in finance, economics, computer science, criminal justice, or a related field preferred; exceptional relevant experience counts equally.

• CAMS, CFE, or equivalent certification preferred.

Technical Skills

• Strong SQL skills for querying and analyzing large transaction datasets.

• Experience configuring, testing, and optimizing rules in platforms such as Unit21, Sardine, Actimize, or Verafin.

• Ability to translate detection requirements into rule logic — thresholds, velocity calculations, aggregation windows, and behavioral patterns.

• Experience using data to evaluate rule effectiveness and reduce false positives.

• Working knowledge of API-driven payment architecture and rails including ACH/NACHA, RTP, FedNow, and Visa Direct.

Preferred Experience

• Experience at a payments fintech, BaaS…