Chief Systems Architect

Payments Industry is a very exciting and fast-developing area with lot of new and innovative solutions coming to market. With strong demand for new solutions in this space, it promises to be an exciting area of innovation. VISA is a strong leader in the payment industry and is rapidly transitioning into a technology company with significant investments in this area.

If you want to be in the exciting payment space, learn fast and make big impacts, Ecosystem & Operational Risk technology which is part of Visa’s Value-Added Services business unit is an ideal place for you!

In Ecosystem & Operational Risk (EOR) technology group, we are responsible for building Visa’s cutting-edge risk detection and mitigation capabilities including payment fraud disruption. This includes idea generation, architecture, design, development, and testing of products, applications, and services that provide Visa and its clients with solutions to detect, prevent, and mitigate various threats in the overall payment eco system.

We are in search of inquisitive, creative, and skillful technologists to join our ranks. We are currently looking for a Chief Systems Architect who will take the lead and manage several strategic initiatives within our organization.

As a Chief Systems Architect in Ecosystem & Operational Risk technology team, you will need to innovate around solution approaches in a way that can deliver value in an agile, incremental fashion to our clients, while at the same time ensuring that broader architectural goals/tenets are met. The role will involve closely collaborating with a global network of architects and business folks across Visa to achieve the objectives.

In this role, you will provide strategic architecture leadership to development leaders and your product partners on large and complex projects to meet the exciting and dynamic needs of the global payments landscape. You utilize your technical experience and industry acumen in areas of fraud prevention, payments, ecommerce, risk analysis, security, digital payments to craft technically advanced solutions to meet Visa's current and future needs.

Your vision is highly strategic, and the solutions are focused on maintaining the reliability and functionality that is essential to both internal and external constituents. If this opportunity sparks your interest, we would love to engage in further discussions and share more about our work, culture, and environment.

To be successful in this role, the candidate needs to be a technical leader with the ability to engage in high bandwidth conversations with business and technology partners and be able to think broadly about Visa’s business and drive solutions that will enhance the safety and integrity of Visa’s payment ecosystem. The candidate will help deliver innovative insights to Visa's strategic products and business. This role represents an exciting opportunity to make key contributions to strategic offering for Visa. The candidate will be a self-starter comfortable with ambiguity, with strong attention to detail, and excellent collaboration skills.

The ideal candidate will bring the excitement and passion to leverage Generative AI to advance existing payment systems risk detection and defensive mechanisms and to innovate and solve new problems. This candidate will use and promote code generation capabilities like GitHub Copilot to drive efficiencies in software development.

 

Essential Functions

• Provide hands on technical architecture leadership across multiple, large/complex projects and strategic initiatives
• Co-ordinate with EOR technology groups and broader VAS architecture teams on architecture standards
• Understand the proposed business architecture and understand the current baseline technical architecture for EOR applications
• Work with development leaders and business partners to arrive at a blueprint long term architecture that would meet the technical requirements like security, scale, performance, consistency, etc.
• Form and oversee an architecture review group for EOR technology team
• Stay informed about new technology trends, innovations, and requests from Visa's strategic partners
• Incorporates the usage of Visa’s shared platforms into the sub-function’s platform strategy
• Produce high-level architecture and design documents for significant initiatives
• Review and approve the design in the form of a Technical Architecture Design which will be used as the basis for sizing and the creation of detailed design artifacts
• Have the team deliver proofs of concept (PoCs) and other technical evaluations of technologies, designs, and solutions as needed
• Apply mastery in architecture best practices to enable projects to be delivered with improved business outcomes and increase execution velocity
• Demonstrate thought leadership through presentations and act as a role model for development leads and engineers
• Works with peers across the technology organization on technology selection and deployment standards
• Formulate business problems to technical problems while ensuring key business drivers are captured in collaboration with product stakeholders
• Able to work on multiple projects and initiatives with different/competing timelines and demands.
• Present technical solutions, capabilities, considerations, and features in business terms. Effectively communicate status, issues, and risks in a precise and timely manner

 

This is a hybrid position. Hybrid employees can alternate time between both remote and office. Employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office 2-3 set days a week (determined by leadership/site), with a general guidepost of being in the office 50% or more of the time based on business needs.

Visa is not offering relocation assistance for this role.

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
· Proven experience as Principal Architect or in a similar role, with a track record of successfully architecting and building complex software systems
· Experience architecting and building large scale distributed data processing systems of high availability, low latency & strong data consistency
· Proficiency in designing real time distributed systems and microservices architectures
· Exceptional problem-solving skills and the ability to scrutinize complex systems to identify areas for improvement.
· Ability to write elegant, robust code to rapidly produce proofs-of-concept or prototypes to illustrate new ideas or approaches.
· Comprehensive knowledge of secure software development lifecycle and security best practices.
· Hands on experience and deep knowledge with programming languages like Java, Python, and frontend frameworks like Angular
· In-depth knowledge and hands-on experience with big data technologies, including Hadoop, Spark, Hive, HBase, etc.
· Technical proficiency in Web Services, SOA, and messaging systems.
· Experience with SQL/NoSQL technology and familiarity with databases such as Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server etc.
· Experience working with streaming solutions like Kafka and Caching technologies like Redis, Hazelcast etc. is a plus
· Solid understanding and preferably working experience with AI/ML technologies
· Experience with containerization technologies and orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes)
· Extensive experience in API design, with a focus on API security, and in system and component design.
· Experience working in a strong DevOps culture and related technologies that help the organization to deliver solutions with faster time-to-market and with higher-quality with a customer-centric approach
· Excellent interpersonal, facilitation, and team-building skills, coupled with effective written and verbal communication skills. Ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and concisely, and to influence and build relationships with key partners.
· Experience in card industry or fintech delivering solutions in fraud, risk, or payments space is a plus

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 a new hire into this position is 173,100.00 to 250,950.00 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.

Visa is not offering relocation assistance for this role.