Job DescriptionAbout Visa
Visa's Technology Organization is a community of problem solvers and innovators reshaping the future of commerce. We operate one of the world's most sophisticated global transaction networks-processing more than 65,000 secure transactions per second across 80 million merchants, 15,000 financial institutions, and billions of people worldwide.
Within Value-Added Services (VAS), we are building AI-native data foundations that transform how data is discovered, understood, and activated-enabling product intelligence, growth analytics, and real-time decisioning across Visa's ecosystem.
The Opportunity
We are seeking a Lead Architect to define and drive the vision for VAS Data Foundations-a hybrid, AI-ready 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 AI-driven insights-powering dashboards, product analytics, AI agents, and executive decision-making at global scale.
The Work Itself
- Define the end-to-end architectural vision for AI-native data foundations, spanning cloud data platforms, semantic layers, AI metadata, and consumption layers.
- Lead consolidation of disparate data sources (on-prem, Hadoop, acquisitions, cloud) into a single, accessible, governed data layer.
- Design and evolve an AI-native semantic layer that enables any agent, analyst, or product to discover, query, and reason over data consistently.
- Enable agentic and self-service analytics, including automated insights, metric discovery, product analytics, and "talk-to-data" experiences.
- Partner with Product, Business, AI and Data Science teams to operationalize AI Data Scientist capabilities for automated visualization, deep-dive 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 long-term thinking across VAS.
Essential Functions
- Act as the principal architect for VAS Data Foundations, owning long-term 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 AI-ready data products.
- Ensure platforms are hybrid cloud-native, AI-ready, privacy-preserving, and globally scalable.
- Drive architectural decisions that balance speed, governance, reusability, and cost efficiency.
- Identify systemic patterns across data quality, usage, performance, and analytics friction-and drive foundational improvements.
This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.
Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.
QualificationsBasic Qualifications
• 10+ years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor's 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 Bachelor's 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 PhD15 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor's 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 large-scale 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 LLM-based analytics, including agent-driven or conversational data experiences.
• Ability to think in systems and abstractions-data models, metrics, semantics, and contracts-not just pipelines.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, shaping vision, and driving alignment across engineering, product, and business teams.
• Strong communication skills-able to explain complex architectures to senior technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Passion for building platforms that enable product analytics, growth insights, and decision intelligence at scale.
U.S. Applicants OnlyThe estimated salary range for this position is $ to $ 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.
Work HoursVaries upon the needs of the department.
Travel RequirementsThis position requires travel 5-10% of the time.
Mental/Physical RequirementsThis 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.
