How does the Verification department operate in Veriff? - An interview with Amber de Wolde

Here in Veriff, we build tools that make the digital world safer and build trust on the internet. But a lot is going on behind the scenes - our team works hard daily to provide a product that is useful for customers. For that, we need to make sure that different departments cooperate with each other to accomplish their goals. And we thought it was about time to share a little more about the daily operations of different departments at Veriff.

Let’s take a look first at our Verification Department - their team is huge and very diverse. Recently, I had a nice chat with one of the Verification Team Leads - Amber de Wolde, originally from the Netherlands.

Amber has huge experience in working with startups. Before moving to Tallinn, she lived in Berlin, where she worked with multiple tech companies in the growth stage, mainly in the e-commerce sector. She joined Veriff in January 2020 and that was the reason for her to move to Estonia. Our conversation was very interesting - we talked about her everyday work-life, challenges, and different ongoing projects at Veriff. Enjoy!

To get readers up to speed, let’s talk about your life here. How does your everyday work-life look like as a Verification Team Lead?

My tasks, as a verification team lead, are split into different groups of things - this position is very diverse, and I get to work on various projects, which are mostly related to our quarterly goals and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). It all depends on the direction that the company is taking at a given time. But a chunk of my tasks are also related to the team of 10 verification specialists that I manage.

We usually start the week with meetings - this is where we come together as a big group of operations team leads and review the recent results. We also discuss numbers on the regional level in a separate meeting and look at the numbers from the week before - speed metrics, policy metrics, possible improvements, etc. We also talk about the ongoing projects and things that everyone needs to be aware of. Other than that, I’m responsible for keeping in touch with the Customer Support department on behalf of verification, and I deal with onboarding new Verification Specialists, which means that I keep in touch with our Office Team regarding that.

As I said, my team consists of 10 specialists. I try to have one-to-one meetings with them weekly because it helps us communicate better and update each other on our everyday challenges. I think this approach is really important, especially during these times when people mostly work from home.

What role does the Verification department play in the overall success of Veriff? And what are the main challenges to provide the best service?

The Verification department is the main component to build the infrastructure for trust on the internet. Our team protects honest people and businesses from online identity fraud - read the Fraud Index here - this plays a major role in the overall success of the company. Together with automation, we develop the main product that Veriff offers to its clients. Automation is a huge part of Veriff’s product. It is improving daily, which helps the company to grow and scale. On the other hand, there is the Verification department, which is an essential part of Veriff functioning in the Identity Verification process and maintaining growth. 

As our department deals with people, the biggest challenge is to make sure that we can offer the service to our clients in a timely manner and provide them with great results. For us, it is important to understand the human factor of providing such a service, where you need to be both accurate and fast. In this case, it is important to know that we have enough capacity to deal with clients with different volumes and our verification team members are ready to provide the best service.

What roles and responsibilities do you divide within the department?

We have a massive operations department. In our team, everyone has a chance to work towards the direction they are most interested in. The roles here are very diverse, from the head of verification operations to senior verification specialists, fraud analysts, document database specialists - we have a whole range.

Because of this wide range of disciplines, lots of projects are going on all the time. One of the things that I really like about our department, and Veriff in general, is that there are so many opportunities for people to grow - whether you want to become a people manager and you want to move vertically, or you want to specialize yourself in something and improve your specific skills, there are lots of opportunities to do that. 

What are the projects that specialists are getting involved in?

As I said before, it is pretty common that Verification Specialists take over various tasks from different areas and work on them as their projects. Their tasks are heavily dependent on our quarterly goals as a company - we don’t necessarily have the same focus on every quarter, so when our focus shifts, new projects and opportunities will come up. 

These projects are very connected to what we are trying to achieve in the specific quarter. It can be related to the communication flows between the different teams within our operations department - document research, policy creation, quality assurance, etc. Verification Specialists also help each other out to improve quality and performance.

There are always opportunities to move internally in different departments as well. Our team members can take over various tasks, grow their knowledge, and join other departments to build their careers. I think this kind of movement is really beneficial for the company. 

Finally, what would be your advice to people who want to apply to join the Verification department here? 

I would say that the most important thing to keep in mind when applying to work at Veriff is that we have a really fast-paced environment, things are constantly changing here, and we expect you to be part of that change with your contribution. We all bring something new to the table based on our backgrounds and experiences. Everybody is taking the initiative and contributing to improve our services based on their experiences. This mindset helps us grow fast and provide the best service that builds trust in the digital world.

You need to constantly socialize with colleagues, ask for second opinions, and collaborate on various projects together. This is the environment we are part of, and we are happy to have new team members who share the same mindset.

Interested in a career with Veriff? Apply here.