Lead Architect

About Visa

Visas Technology Organization is a community of problem solvers and innovators reshaping the future of commerce. We operate one of the worlds most sophisticated global transaction networksprocessing more than 65000 secure transactions per second across 80 million merchants 15000 financial institutions and billions of people worldwide.

Within ValueAdded Services (VAS) we are building AInative data foundations that transform how data is discovered understood and activatedenabling product intelligence growth analytics and realtime decisioning across Visas ecosystem.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a Lead Architect to define and drive the vision for VAS Data Foundationsa hybrid AIready platform that consolidates company wide data into a unified governed and intelligent data layer.

This role sits at the intersection of data architecture AI/ML and product intelligence. You will shape how data flows from raw signals to semantic meaning to AIdriven insightspowering dashboards product analytics AI agents and executive decisionmaking at global scale.

The Work Itself

• Define the endtoend architectural vision for AInative data foundations spanning cloud data platforms semantic layers AI metadata and consumption layers.
• Lead consolidation of disparate data sources (onprem Hadoop acquisitions cloud) into a single accessible governed data layer.
• Design and evolve an AInative semantic layer that enables any agent analyst or product to discover query and reason over data consistently.
• Enable agentic and selfservice analytics including automated insights metric discovery product analytics and talktodata experiences.
• Partner with Product Business AI and Data Science teams to operationalize AI Data Scientist capabilities for automated visualization deepdive insights and product intelligence.
• Establish architectural standards for data quality metadata lineage observability governance and responsible AI usage.
• Guide platform evolution across data ingestion ETL/ELT pipelines scalable data models metric catalogs and presentation layers.
• Translate business and product needs (growth churn retention fraud performance) into durable data and semantic architectures.
• Influence and mentor senior engineers and architects elevating architectural rigor and longterm thinking across VAS.

Essential Functions

• Act as the principal architect for VAS Data Foundations owning longterm architectural coherence across data AI and analytics layers.
• Lead structured discovery with Product and Business stakeholders to align business questions to metrics to data model to semantic models to AIready data products.
• Ensure platforms are hybrid cloudnative AIready privacypreserving and globally scalable.
• Drive architectural decisions that balance speed governance reusability and cost efficiency.
• Identify systemic patterns across data quality usage performance and analytics frictionand drive foundational improvements.

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

Qualifications :

Basic Qualifications:

• 10 years of relevant work experience with a Bachelors Degree or at least 7 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters MBA JD MD) or 4 years of work experience with a PhD OR 13 years of relevant work experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelors Degree or 8-10 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters MBA JD MD) or 6 years of work experience with a PhD
• 15 or more years of work experience with a Bachelors Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters MBA JD MD) or 6 years of work experience with a PhD. The Skills You Bring Strong architectural mindset with experience designing largescale data platforms semantic layers or analytics foundations.
• Deep understanding of cloud data ecosystems (data lakes warehouses streaming ETL/ELT metadata governance).
• Experience working with or enabling AI/ML and LLMbased analytics including agentdriven or conversational data experiences.
• Ability to think in systems and abstractionsdata models metrics semantics and contractsnot just pipelines. Comfort operating in ambiguity shaping vision and driving alignment across engineering product and business teams.
• Strong communication skillsable to explain complex architectures to senior technical and nontechnical stakeholders. Passion for building platforms that enable product analytics growth insights and decision intelligence at scale.

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 173100.00 to 276800.00 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