Risk Systems Architect

First Circle is a fast-growing, profitable, credit-led SME NeoBank in the Philippines whose shareholders include the World Bank Group (IFC). Today, our Business Credit Line and Business Bank Accounts are used by thousands of SMEs to grow and run their business. Our product velocity has accelerated - we're releasing SME Corporate Cards, Payroll, Invoices, and Solar Financing - redefining the SME NeoBank category through software, financial products, and exceptional risk models.

Our ambition is to build Southeast Asia's leading SME NeoBank and reach $1B in revenue by 2030.

Our culture emphasises building, problem solving, ownership, and growth. We balance a collegiate atmosphere with free and direct communication, enabling us to move very quickly and avoid politics. Our team continues to level up quickly - necessary for a business compounding at more than 100% per year.

The Opportunity

This is not a conventional product management role. Instead, you must combine technical risk management with system design & engineering. You will consistently solve hard, complex problems in risk by decompose it into its components, design a system-level solution(s), and drive it to completion in close partnership with our engineering team.

Think less product manager, more systems engineer who doesn't write code - someone who thrives in the space between deep analytical thinking and hands-on execution. If you're the kind of person who naturally draws architecture diagrams when solving a problem, asks "how does this interact with everything else?", and holds yourself to a very high standard, this role was built for you.

You will be working at the centre of First Circle's risk infrastructure reporting directly to the Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer - a function that directly determines the quality of our loan book, the integrity of our financial products, and our ability to scale safely at pace.

What You'll Do

System Design & Technical Planning

• Contribute to the end-to-end technical design of our risk systems and processes: from problem definition through to solution architecture, integration planning, and implementation
• Translate complex risk and business requirements into precise, buildable technical specifications that engineers can execute
• Map dependencies across data pipelines, decision engines, product flows, and operational systems to ensure everything works coherently together
• Identify structural weaknesses or failure modes in existing systems before they become problems

Execution & Delivery

• Partner closely with engineers daily — writing detailed specs, reviewing implementations, debugging, and iterating with pace and precision
• Drive initiatives from concept through to production, maintaining momentum and quality throughout
• Manage multiple concurrent workstreams without dropping balls, keeping stakeholders informed and blockers cleared

Analytical Problem Solving

• Apply structured, rigorous thinking to ambiguous risk problems — credit, fraud, operational, or model risk
• Build and interrogate analytical models to pressure-test proposed solutions before they're built
• Synthesise data, business logic, and technical constraints into clear, reasoned recommendations

Risk Management

• Develop a working understanding of First Circle's risk frameworks and apply this to system design decisions
• Flag emerging risks embedded in system design and proposed solutions, ensuring they are explicitly addressed

Requirements

This role will expose you to hard, multi-dimensional problems. We want someone who finds that energising, not intimidating.

Background & Experience

• 2–7 years of experience in a technical, analytically demanding field - we are genuinely open on sector
• Strong candidates may come from: quantitative finance, structured finance, engineering (civil, mechanical, electrical, systems), technical consulting, investment banking, actuarial work, trading, data or analytics roles, or technical operations
• A risk background is not required - what matters is the ability to learn quickly and think in systems
• Experience working closely with software engineers or technical teams is a meaningful advantage but not a prerequisite

Skills & Traits

• Systems thinker: you instinctively consider how components interact, where failure points emerge, and how to build for robustness and scale
• Analytically rigorous: you go deep, check your assumptions, and don't accept "it should work" without understanding why
• Technically literate: comfortable with SQL, data analysis, or quantitative modelling — you don't need to write production code, but you can read it and reason about it
• Clear communicator: you write precisely and speak directly; your specs are unambiguous and your reasoning is easy to follow
• Exceptionally reliable: you follow through, meet your commitments, and hold a high personal bar for output quality
• High energy and proactive: you identify what needs to be done without being asked and move quickly

Open to candidates based anywhere in Southeast Asia, Australia, or New Zealand. We operate with strong async habits and move fast regardless of timezone.

Benefits

• You'll be solving genuinely hard, consequential problems - not maintaining feature backlogs
• Direct impact on First Circle's core: our risk infrastructure underpins everything we do
• Significant opportunity to grow quickly in a business compounding at 100%+ per years
• No fixed budget: we hire globally and adjust offers based on experience and market rate
• Macbooks, premium health insurance, training budget, and more!
• Flexibility to work remotely with opportunities for travel