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Salary: USD 160,000 - 180,000 / annual
TRM Labs is an AI-powered intelligence platform helping public and private sector agencies investigate and disrupt crime. The Insights team publishes original research shaping how journalists, policymakers, and investigators understand illicit finance and criminal networks.
As Senior Data Researcher, you will own research projects from conception to publication. You will publish original investigative research on high-impact crime topics including fraud and scams, sanctions evasion, ransomware, terrorist financing, drug and human trafficking, and the financial networks behind them. Your work will withstand scrutiny from top-tier press and policymakers.
Key responsibilities:
- Conduct original investigations combining TRM's blockchain intelligence with non-crypto sources (sanctions lists, court filings, corporate records, open-source intelligence) to identify patterns and build evidence-backed narratives
- Use AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, agent-based systems) throughout the research, analysis, methodology validation, and packaging process
- Lead research that answers critical open questions about crime and illicit finance, turning findings into published pieces with measurable reach
- Extend research impact by creating training content for investigators and compliance teams, and feeding emerging threat intelligence back to product and intelligence teams
- Collaborate with Marketing, Communications, intelligence teams, product teams, and TRM Academy on distribution and application of findings
- Manage the research and content workflow end-to-end, working within a fast-moving, AI-native research environment
Expected impact milestones: publish first original research piece within 30 days; complete full research-to-distribution cycle with measurable media gains within 60 days; run end-to-end workflow and support weekly training sessions within 90 days.
The role requires participation in in-person R&D work weeks (typically 1–2 times per quarter) at TRM hubs or designated locations, with 14 days' notice and travel covered by TRM.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- 5 to 8 years combining research or data analysis with published writing, including at least one high-impact investigation led from evidence-gathering to final publication
- Strong analytical skills across varied sources: financial data, open-source intelligence, court and regulatory records, structured datasets; proficiency using AI to accelerate and validate analysis
- Public portfolio of investigative or research-led work with measurable reach (major media pickup, citations, audience growth); background as investigative journalist, financial crime researcher, threat intelligence analyst, or research-focused writer with analytical capability
- Deep AI fluency: already rely heavily on AI across research, analysis, drafting, and packaging; comfortable running and quality-checking agent-based production workflows
- Experience in financial crime, sanctions, cybercrime, national security, or crypto is a strong plus
