Chief Software Engineer

Visa is a world leader in payments technology, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories, dedicated to uplifting everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

At Visa, you'll have the opportunity to create impact at scale - tackling meaningful challenges, growing your skills and seeing your contributions impact lives around the world. Join Visa and do work that matters - to you, to your community, and to the world.

Progress starts with you.

The ValueAdded Services Product Development (VAS PD) team drives diversification of Visa's revenue through differentiated, networkagnostic products that extend the power of the Visa ecosystem. Within VAS, the Risk and Security Solutions (RAS) team deliversmissioncritical, AIdriven risk, fraud, authentication, and identity platformsserving issuers, merchants, fintechs, and partners at global scale.

TheChief Software Engineerin the RAS Product Development team is a senior technical authority responsible for defining and executingenterprisescale technology strategy, cloudnative architecture, and engineering excellencealigned to business outcomes. This role provides deep technical leadership acrossAcceptance and Authentication Risk platforms(Visa Enhanced Authentication, Visa Secure, Cardinal, Decision Manager) andIdentity platforms(Identity Graphand Device Intelligence).

This position requires handson expertise inpublic cloud, distributed systems, securityfirst design, and Generative / Agentic AI, with a strong focus ondeveloper productivity, platform leverage, and clientfacing innovation.

Essential Functions

• Define, own, and evolve theendtoend technical vision, architecture, and execution strategyfor RAS platforms, ensuring alignment with business objectives while accelerating innovation, scalability, and timetomarket.
• Architect, design, and implementhighthroughput, lowlatency, highly available (99.999%+) distributed systemssupporting realtime transaction processing, authentication, and identity services at global scale.
• Lead theenterprise adoption of Generative AI and Agentic AIto achieve10X gains in developer productivity, including AIassisted coding, testing, observability, security analysis, and autonomous agents for platform operations, as well asAIpowered, clientfacing product capabilities.
• Establish and institutionalizemodern software engineering best practices, including CI/CD automation, DevSecOps, InfrastructureasCode, and policydriven governance to improve quality, velocity, and operational resilience across the SSDLC.
• Drivecloudfirst, cloudnative architectureacross AWS and/or Azure, optimizing for resiliency, elasticity, performance, cost efficiency, and zerotrust security using managed services, containers, and serverless technologies.
• Actively contribute tocritical path initiativesby developing core frameworks, shared services, automation platforms, reference architectures, and proofofconcepts to validate emerging technologies and accelerate product delivery.
• Providetechnical leadership at scale, setting architectural standards, engineering KPIs, and execution priorities while enabling highperforming teams to deliver complex, multiyear platform roadmaps.
• Partner crossfunctionally withsecurity, privacy, risk, compliance, governance, and business stakeholdersto deliver compliant, secure, and resilient solutions meeting strict nonfunctional requirements and regulatory expectations.
• Translate complex technical strategies intoclear, executivelevel narratives, influencing senior leadership, product management, and external partners through datadriven decisionmaking.
• Mentor and coachsenior engineers, staff engineers, and engineering managers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, continuous learning, innovation, and knowledge sharing through design reviews, tech talks, and oneonone mentorship.
• Implement rigorousengineering excellence practicesacross design, development, testing, deployment, monitoring, and incident response to uphold platform reliability, security, and architectural integrity.
• Exemplify and reinforceVisa's Leadership Principlesby acting as an owner, promoting collaboration, and executing with operational and technical excellence.
• This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager.

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager.

Basic Qualifications:

• 12+ years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor's Degree or at least 9 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 6 years of work experience with a PhD, OR 15+ years of relevant work experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor's Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, or MD), PhD with 9+ years of experience
• Technical Expertise: 15+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in architecting largescale, cloudnative, distributed systems. Strong proficiency in Java, Python, GoLang, and modern frameworks such as Spring Boot, Node.js, and React.
• Generative AI & Agentic AI: Demonstrated success applying Generative AI and autonomous agents to deliver orderofmagnitude productivity improvements and differentiated product features. Experience integrating LLMs, vector databases, prompt engineering, RAG, and AI governance into production platforms.
• Cloud & DevOps: Handson experience with AWS and/or Azure, including containerization (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), serverless architectures, and CI/CD pipelines with strong DevSecOps practices.
• Architectural Leadership: Deep understanding of architectural patterns, tradeoff analysis, and longterm platform evolution. Experience designing and operating activeactive, multiregion, globally resilient systems.
• HandsOn Leadership: Willingness and ability to contribute directly to production code, frameworks, and prototypes to validate ideas, unblock teams, and accelerate adoption of emerging technologies.* API & Integration: Extensive experience with RESTful and gRPC APIs, microservices architectures, service meshes, and eventdriven systems (Kafka, Pub/Sub, streaming platforms). Rust knowledge is a plus.
• Security Expertise: Strong foundation in API security, cryptography, data encryption, key management, and HSMs. Proven experience implementing securitybydesign, zerotrust, and defenseindepth practices in regulated environments.
• Data & Caching: Proficiency with SQL and NoSQL data stores and distributed caching technologies such as Redis. Experience designing data models for highscale, lowlatency systems.
• SSDLC Automation: Proven ability to automate the entire SSDLC using automated testing, security scanning, quality gates, observability, and release orchestration to improve speed, reliability, and compliance.
• Leadership & Communication: Exceptional ability to lead, influence, and mentor engineering organizations. Strong communication skills to articulate complex technical concepts to executives, clients, and diverse technical audiences.

Work Hours: Varies upon the needs of the department.

Travel Requirements: This position requires travel5-10% of the time.

Mental/Physical Requirements: This position will be performed in an office setting. The position will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, frequently operate standard office equipment, such as telephones and computers.

Visa is an EEO Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Visa will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.

Visa will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable local law, including the requirements of Article 49 of the San Francisco Police Code.

U.S. APPLICANTS ONLY: The estimated salary range for this position is 195,800.00 to 313,500.00 USD per year, which may include potential sales incentive payments (if applicable). Salary may vary depending on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for bonus and equity. Visa has a comprehensive benefits package for which this position may be eligible that includes Medical, Dental, Vision, 401 (k), FSA/HSA, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, and Wellness Program.