Senior Director, Software Engineering

The Value-Added Services Product Development (VAS PD) team drives the diversification of our revenue with products that differentiate Visa network and deliver valuable solutions across other networks. The Acceptance organization in VAS enables secure seamless payment acceptance for merchants and partners worldwide supporting Visas mission to expand digital commerce and deliver value-added services across the payments ecosystem. part of Acceptance provides secure payment solutions tailored for small and medium businesses (SMBs).

This Senior Director position in the development team will be responsible for leading the technology strategy solution and execution of initiatives that support our business objectives. This role focuses on reimagining and enabling its global expansion.

A key aspect of this role is close partnership with Product Management to drive adoption of Generative AI and Agentic AI accelerating agility developer productivity and innovation across the platform.

Essential Functions

• Lead and scale multiple global development teams comprising engineers managers and leaders across levels and geographies.

• Define and drive overall technical strategy and architecture ensuring alignment with business goals while accelerating innovation and time to market.

• Drive adoption of Generative AI and Agentic AI to materially improve developer productivity and enable innovative business solutions.

• Deliver complex highly interdependent products by collaborating across Product Operations & Infrastructure CyberSecurity Client Support and other Product Development teams.

• Establish a strong culture of engineering excellence including quality security performance scalability availability and resilience.

• Partner with product owners to define strategy roadmaps and execution plans aligned with business outcomes.

• Oversee prioritization delivery and ongoing maintenance of multiple platforms and services including incident change and problem management.

• Hire retain and develop high-performing diverse global engineering teams with a strong emphasis on mentorship coaching and career growth.

• Provide hands-on technology leadership by contributing to architecture critical code paths automation tools and proof-of-concepts as needed.

• Establish and promote best practices across the software development lifecycle including CI/CD automation DevOps testing deployment and operational excellence.

• Oversee cloud-first application development on AWS Azure or GCP ensuring solutions are secure resilient scalable and cost-effective.

• Communicate technical strategy and solutions effectively to diverse stakeholders including executives and business leaders.

• Lead with a strong client-focused mindset while adhering to Visas Leadership Principles of collaboration ownership and execution excellence.

• Lead multiple development teams made up of full-time employees and contractors of various levels from junior engineers to directors.

• Lead the adoption of Generative AI and Agentic AI to boost developer productivity by 10X leveraging these technologies to build innovative business solutions and products. 

• Deliver products with complex technical interdependencies collaborating with cross geographical development and product teams. Collaborate with Product Office Operations & Infrastructure CyberSecurity Client Support and other Product Development teams in developing complete solutions.

• Build a culture of engineering excellence (quality security performance scalability availability resilience etc.) across your own teams and the entire organization.

• Partner with product owners in developing a strategy and roadmap that align with business goals.

• Define and drive the overall technical strategy and architecture ensuring alignment with business goals while accelerating innovation and time to market.

• Influence adoption of best engineering practices automations of software development testing and deployment processes.

• Manage the prioritization and delivery of enhancements and ongoing maintenance activities for multiple services.

• Be responsible for the incident management change and problem management.

• Hire retain and grow high-performing and diverse global engineering teams.

• Invest in the career development of your employees with a strong focus on mentorship and training.

• Lead with a strong client focus mindset across organizations.

• Handle routine daily activities such as coordination coaching mentoring recruiting budgeting planning delivery quality partner relationships performance metrics operations efficiency service level management etc.

• Architect design and code highly scalable reliable and secure distributed systems and transaction processing platforms.

• Establish and promote best practices for software development including CI/CD automation and DevOps to improve efficiency and quality across the SSDLC. 

• Oversee cloud first application development and optimization on AWS Azure or GCP to ensure solutions are resilient scalable cost-effective and secure. 

• Actively contribute to critical projects by developing key modules core frameworks automation tools and proof-of-concepts to validate emerging ideas and technologies. 

• Provide technology leadership and motivate high-performing engineering teams setting clear priorities to achieve product and technology KPIs. 

• Collaborate cross-functionally with security privacy governance and business partners to deliver compliant scalable and reliable solutions that meet all non-functional requirements. 

• Communicate technical strategy and engineering solutions effectively to diverse stakeholders including executives and business units. 

• Mentor and coach senior engineers and engineering managers fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous learning through brown bags tech talks and one-on-one sessions. 

• Implement rigorous application development testing deployment and monitoring practices to uphold architectural excellence and reliability standards.

• Adhere to Visas Leadership Principles by promoting collaboration acting as owner and executing with excellence.

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager. 

Qualifications :

Basic Qualifications:
12 years of relevant work experience and a Bachelors degree OR 15 years of relevant work experience

Preferred Qualifications:
15 or more years of experience with a Bachelors Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters MBA JD or MD) PhD with 9 years of experience
16 or more years of experience with a Bachelors Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters MBA JD or MD) PhD with 10 years of experience.
Proven experience managing software development teams delivering highly available enterprise level distributed applications utilizing technologies such as Java Golang Spark etc.
Outstanding verbal written presentation facilitation and interaction skills along with effective communication (both written and verbal) skills and the ability to present complex ideas in a clear concise way.
Proven track record of coordinating multiple product and technical teams by removing roadblocks and solving complex problems collaboratively.
Strong at technical goal setting for a project with actionable success metrics.
Security Expertise: Strong understanding of API security data encryption and
Hardware Security Modules (HSMs). Experience in building secure
applications and implementing security-first practices.
Database Skills: Proficiency in SQL and NoSQL databases (e.g. MSSQL
MongoDB). Experience with distributed caching technologies like Redis.
Generative AI & Agentic AI: Experience leveraging Generative AI and Agentic AI to drive productivity improvements and product innovation. Familiarity with integrating AI solutions into existing platforms.
Cloud & DevOps: Hands-on experience with AWS Azure or GCP. Strong
understanding of DevOps practices CI/CD pipelines containerization (Docker)
and orchestration tools (Kubernetes).
SSDLC Automation: Demonstrated ability to automate SSDLC phases to
improve efficiency and quality. Experience with automated testing frameworks
code quality tools and delivery pipelines.
Architectural Leadership: Deep understanding of architectural patterns and best practices. Ability to balance short-term and long-term technological decisions aligned with business goals. Experience in designing and maintaining highly available (99.999%) reliable active-active critical systems.
Hands-On Attitude: Willingness to contribute directly to codebases and develop
to validate new ideas and integrate beneficial emerging technologies.
Leadership & Communication: Ability to lead and mentor engineering teams fostering a collaborative environment.
Familiarity with compliance and regulatory requirements in the payments industry is a plus. Passion for staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies.
Familiarity with Visa CyberSource technologies is a plus.

Additional Information :

Work Hours: Varies upon the needs of the department.

Travel Requirements: This position requires travel 5-10% 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 206100.00 to 360800.00 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 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.

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time