Company Description

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.

Job Description

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Software Engineer to join Visa’s Shared Services Product Development organization. This role is ideal for a senior technologist who thrives as a lead generalist, operating across infrastructure, security, scalability, and platform engineering, while building foundational services that enable Visa’s global product ecosystem.

In this role, you will design and deliver Java/J2EE-based shared services that power multiple Visa products and platforms, influencing internal engineering standards for scalability, security, reliability, and reusability. You will collaborate across Product, Engineering, Security, SRE, and Architecture teams to build resilient, cloud-native systems that support Visa’s mission at global scale.

The Work Itself

• Design, build, and evolve core shared services that support Visa’s product development ecosystem and reach approximately 40% of the world’s population.
• Lead the development of scalable, secure, and reusable Java/J2EE-based services that serve as foundational platforms for multiple product teams.
• Act as a lead generalist, contributing across application architecture, infrastructure, security, and scalability to ensure shared services are enterprise-grade and future-ready.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to create architecture and design artifacts and deliver best-in-class software solutions used across Visa’s technical offerings.
• Drive continuous improvements in product quality, platform reliability, and operational excellence across shared services.
• Develop robust, highly available systems serving diverse use cases, including consumer-facing products, B2B platforms, and business-to-government solutions.
• Leverage modern technologies to build the next generation of Payment Services, Transaction Platforms, Real-Time Payments, and Buy Now Pay Later capabilities.
• Contribute to team and organizational growth through mentorship, technical leadership, and continuous learning initiatives.

Essential Functions

• Provide deep technical leadership within Shared Services Product Development, with a strong understanding of how shared platforms enable downstream product innovation.
• Lead discovery and design sessions with product partners to translate business requirements into scalable, secure shared-service architectures.
• Define and formalize best practices and standards for Java/J2EE development, API design, security, and service scalability.
• Lead planning, piloting, and integration of new platform capabilities, including infrastructure enhancements, security controls, and AI-enabled tooling.
• Design and implement cloud-native, containerized services using Docker and Kubernetes, ensuring high availability, fault tolerance, and elastic scalability.
• Partner closely with Security teams to implement secure API gateways, authentication and authorization mechanisms, and compliance-driven architectures.
• Analyze systemic patterns across defects, incidents, and performance metrics, driving long-term platform improvements.

The Skills You Bring

• Technical Leadership: Proven experience leading complex software initiatives across distributed systems and shared service platforms.
• Primary Language Expertise: Strong expertise in Java (Core Java, J2EE, RESTful services).
• Architecture & Scalability: Experience designing highly available, scalable, and secure distributed systems.
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Hands-on experience with container-based architectures using Docker and Kubernetes, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Security: Strong understanding of secure API design, authentication/authorization, secure gateway patterns, and enterprise security standards.
• DevOps & Operations: Experience with CI/CD, deployment automation, observability, capacity planning, and production operations.
• AI Enablement: Familiarity with integrating AI tools and services to improve platform intelligence and developer productivity.
• Collaboration: Strong partnership skills working with Product, QA, DevOps, SRE, and Agile/Scrum teams.

Mentorship: Experience coaching engineers on technical excellence and career development.

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

Qualifications

Basic 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 PhD
• You have proven ability to define needs, develop plans, coordinate resources and implement action plans.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multiple projects simultaneously & to resolve scheduling & other conflicts in order to meet all deadlines.
• Thorough understanding of Container based architecture for Cloud such as Docker or Kubernetes.
• Experience in cloud migration and multi cloud strategy.
• Experience in building and establishing elastic scalability architectural patterns for web applications.
• Sound understanding of Service and IT operations management, and DevOps model, good knowledge of Deployment, Capacity Planning.
• Strong understanding of Enterprise Integration using web services, REST
• Understand the Security requirements and standards, and contemporary trends in Security risks as well as technologies.
• Experience in security domain with secure protocol with authentication, authorization and building secure gateway.
• Experience with a variety of development methodologies and mature understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Solid experience with Agile methods is a plus.
• Superior verbal, written & interpersonal communication skills with both technical & non-technical audiences.
• Experience in coaching engineers both on technical and career development.
• Excellent team player, with strong collaboration skills and ability to influence cross-functional team for results.
• Focus on building an efficient and collaborative team environment.
• Experience in commercial software development on Unix/Linux environment.
• Experience in a technical leadership role
• Understanding of architecture and operations of highly available and scalable applications.
• You have expertise of Core Java, JEE technologies, REST and container based technologies.
• You have experience in consumer facing application development experience.
• Proven track record of responsibilities as a technical lead.
• Proven track record of developing and architecting Secure API gateway solution with dynamic set of security standards.
• You have experience architecting solutions with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery in mind.
• You have amazing work ethics that will help us all work extremely well together
• You have the passion to understanding people and to always striving to improve our products and services.

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 $192,300 to $307,600 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.