Build a Safer World.
TRM Labs provides AI-powered intelligence solutions that help public and private sector agencies investigate and disrupt crime. TRM's platforms enable investigators to trace illicit activity, build cases, and construct operating pictures of threat networks. Leading agencies and businesses worldwide rely on TRM to make the world safer and more secure.
About the Role
The Scam Disruption team is TRM's tip of the spear against pig butchering syndicates, romance fraud networks, and investment scam operations that steal billions from victims each year. The team runs an integrated targeting workflow — taking legal process, fusing on-chain and off-chain data, and delivering actionable intelligence to partners.
As Investigations Manager, you will lead the all-source investigators who run that flywheel every day.
This is a management role for an operator. You will not carry your own caseload — but you will not be removed from the work either. We are looking for someone close enough to the tradecraft to direct it, review it, and drive it to an outcome. Someone at their best when a team of capable people needs aligning behind a single thread, rather than when a report needs writing.
The Impact You Will Have
- Run the team. You will manage a team of 5–15+ all-source investigators — this is a growing team. 1:1s, career-pathing, performance pulses, and growth feedback at TRM Manager standard. You convert priorities from department leadership into investigator workload and escalate cleanly when something exceeds team-level scope. You are joining a capable team building a new capability, and your first job is to invest in it properly: understand where each investigator wants to grow, give them the feedback and the opportunities to get there, and back your people when it counts. The reason your investigators stay and grow is you.
- Drive the flywheel's throughput. Manage the operational cadence of legal process → on-chain/off-chain fusion → targeting at high volume. Clear blockers, balance surge windows against a sustainable pace, and close the loop with stakeholders.
- Own work-product quality. Be the credible QC layer on every target package, attribution write-up, and legal-process return leaving the team — defensible, prioritized, and actionable. Our work gets tested by people outside TRM, so "good enough internally" is not the standard.
- Hire and develop. Source actively alongside the recruiter, run thoughtful interview loops, and own end-to-end onboarding. When the team needs to grow, or when automation shifts the analyst-to-volume ratio, you write the headcount case.
- Translate impact outward. Partner with engineering on tooling, legal on process, and partners on perishable leads, prosecutorial referrals, and joint disruption operations.
- Lead from alongside. Every TRM manager is close to the work. You know it well enough to review it, unblock it, and step in during a surge — without owning a caseload of your own.
What We're Looking For
- You are a people manager. Around 3+ years leading a team, with specific examples of both: a high performer you recognized and accelerated, and someone who was not meeting the bar whom you addressed directly. Continuous feedback, career-pathing, and performance management are practiced habits rather than edge cases. This is the thing we care most about.
- You are an operator, not an observer. You have taken a body of information and driven it to a real-world outcome, not produced reports about it. You know how to go and find the intelligence — or how to make sure your team leads are doing what it takes to find it — and you expect a way forward, not a summary.
- Your work has been tested by outsiders. You have produced or supervised packages held to an external standard: adjudicated by DOJ or OFAC, or defensible in front of a court. Work where a claim had to survive challenge from someone with no stake in your conclusion, and every line had to be justified.
- Illicit-finance investigative background. You have run complex financial crime investigations — scams, fraud, sanctions, extortion, money laundering. The crime type matters less to us than how you work a case.
- Network mapping. You can build an understanding of how a network actually operates and what the total picture looks like, rather than a catalogue of isolated events.
- AI fluency (required). You use AI in your own work today, and you have a clear view of where it genuinely accelerates intelligence work and where human judgment has to stay in the loop. Beyond your own use, we are looking for someone who can set the standard for a team: what baseline competency looks like, how you tell whether an AI initiative is actually improving outcomes, and when to stop investing in one. If your environment limited the tools you could use, tell us — we account for that.
- Legal-process fluency. Working-level familiarity with subpoenas, warrants, preservation requests, and other formal investigative processes. You do not need to be a lawyer; you need to understand how high-quality investigative documentation supports downstream action.
- Strong written communication and stakeholder presence. You are comfortable briefing government audiences at both ends of the range — working-level federal partners and senior stakeholders — as well as TRM leadership, on case outcomes and team throughput.
- Fully remote, US-based. Expect 15–25% travel, unevenly distributed: some months nothing, some months a concentrated sprint or a DC-based working session.
Nice-to-Have
- Crypto or on-chain experience. A genuine advantage, and useful beyond your own work: our investigators come in with a range of blockchain depth, and a manager who is fluent can build development paths that widen their options across TRM. But we teach on-chain tradecraft — we cannot teach the operator's instinct.
- Scam-ecosystem familiarity. Direct experience with pig butchering operations, romance fraud networks, scam-compound infrastructure, or investment-scam networks. It will shorten your ramp considerably, but the team knows this ecosystem well and can bring you up to speed on it.
About the Team
- The Scam Disruption team operates within TRM's Blockchain Intelligence organization, alongside threat intelligence analysts, on-chain investigators, and federal partners.
- Distributed team with an async-first approach via Slack and Notion, plus structured syncs for alignment.
- High autonomy, high standards, low bureaucracy — you work directly with engineers, analysts, legal counterparts, and the partners who depend on the team's output.
Team Operating Rhythms
- Weekly 1:1s with direct reports
- Weekly team sync covering active work, throughput, and escalations
- 6-week performance pulse cycle across the team
- Quarterly career-pathing conversations and Areas of Responsibility audits
- Primary time-zone overlap: US Eastern / Central
- Surge availability expected during time-sensitive disruption windows
Join Our Mission
We seek people whose work matters, who build with speed and rigor, and who take pride in protecting others through their craft. If you’re excited by TRM’s mission but don’t check every box, apply anyway.
Build to protect civilization. Let’s do it together.
Life at TRM
We are building a safer world. That promise shows up in how we work every day.
TRM moves quickly. We are a high velocity, high ownership team that expects clarity, follow-through, and impact. People who thrive here are energized by hard problems, experimentation, and continuous feedback. If something takes months elsewhere, it will ship here in days.
Our work sits at the intersection of AI, national security, and fighting crime. The problems are complex, the stakes are real, and the environment evolves quickly. The pace and intensity of the work reflect the importance of the mission. As a result, the way we operate requires a high level of ownership, adaptability, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.
At TRM, you should expect:
- Priorities and targets to change quickly as we experiment and iterate
- Work that often requires operating with a high degree of ambiguity
- A high level of personal ownership and accountability
- Close collaboration across teams and functions
- Frequent, high-touch communication
- Creative problem solving and out-of-the-box thinking
- A pace that rewards urgency, adaptability, and outcomes
This environment is energizing for people who enjoy building, solving hard problems, and making progress in situations that are not always fully defined. It also requires comfort navigating ambiguity, adjusting course as new information emerges, and maintaining focus and positivity in a fast-moving and intense environment.
We also recognize that this style of operating is not for everyone. If you are primarily optimizing for predictability or a consistently balanced workload, we encourage you to use the interview process to pressure test whether this environment is truly the right fit. We want teammates who thrive here, not just survive here.
At the same time, many people find this work deeply rewarding. If you are excited by meaningful problems, motivated by ambitious goals, and energized by working alongside mission-driven colleagues, there is a good chance you will find TRM to be an exceptional place to grow and contribute. Learn more: Interviewing at TRM: How We Hire and What Success Looks Like
AI Fluency at TRM
AI fluency is a baseline expectation at TRM.
We believe AI meaningfully changes how top performers operate. We expect every team member to use AI to accelerate and reimagine their craft, not just automate surface tasks.
At TRM, AI fluency means you are among the top 10 percent of operators in your function in how you apply AI to:
- Accelerate repeatable workflows
- Structure and solve problems
- Improve output quality
- Increase speed and leverage
You will be evaluated on applied AI fluency during the interview process.
Leadership Principles
We hire and grow against three leadership principles. They’re the standards for how we operate, treat each other, and make decisions.
- Impact-Oriented Trailblazer: We put customers first and move with speed, focus, and adaptability. We treat every plan like an experiment – test, ship, measure, and iterate quickly.
- Master Craftsperson: We care deeply about our craft. We balance speed with high standards, own outcomes end‑to‑end, and invest in getting better everyday.
- Inspiring Colleague: We add clarity and energy, not noise. We bring humility, candor, and a one‑team mindset — giving and receiving feedback to make the team stronger.
Join our Mission
At TRM we care deeply about our craft. We are looking for individuals who want their work to matter, who experiment with speed and rigor, and who take pride in building a safer world for billions of people. If you’re excited by TRM’s mission but don’t check every box, we encourage you to apply — we hire for slope, judgment, and the will to learn fast.
TRM is a Series C company with $220M in total funding, backed by Goldman Sachs, Bessemer, Y Combinator, Thoma Bravo, and others. Headquartered in San Francisco, TRM operates as a distributed-first company with hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., London, and Singapore.
Privacy Policy and Additional Information
By submitting your application, you agree to allow TRM Labs to process your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
We collect the information you provide (such as your resume, work history, and contact details) solely for the purpose of evaluating your candidacy for current and future roles at TRM.
Because our hiring cycles for certain positions may span 24 to 36 months, we retain your personal information for up to 36 months from the date of your application. After that period, your data is deleted unless a different retention period is required or permitted by law.
If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction with applicable data protection laws, you have the right to access, correct, or request deletion of your personal data at any time before that period ends. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@trmlabs.com.
To notify TRM Labs that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
The use of AI tools of any kind (including but not limited to notetakers, interview assistants, and real-time coaching tools such as Otter.ai, Fireflies, Fathom, Cluey, or similar) during TRM interviews is not permitted without prior approval from TRM. TRM uses its own internal tools for note-taking to ensure a consistent and confidential experience for all candidates.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this form.
Recruitment agencies
TRM Labs does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to TRM employees. TRM Labs is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes and will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company without a signed agreement.
Compensation Range: $190K - $230K
