Lead System Architect

Visa; Foster City (CA); On-site; USD 194,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Visa is seeking a Lead Systems Architect to shape the future of how money moves globally. You will operate at the intersection of business strategy, emerging tech, AI innovation, and large-scale engineering, influencing Visa’s critical technology investments.

You will define architecture strategies and roadmaps for strategic payment products, lead API-first platform design, and mentor teams while driving modernization and AI-enabled capabilities that enhance scalability, security, and developer

Qualifications

• Strong communication, problem-solving, and relationship-building skills.
• Experience driving modernization from legacy to scalable architectures.
• Ability to translate business opportunities into practical technology solutions.
• Experience defining target-state architectures and roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Define architecture strategies, target-state architectures, and roadmaps for Visa's payment products and platforms.
• Lead design of open, scalable, API-first platforms using cloud-native, event-driven architectures.
• Mentor engineers and architects, review architectures, and provide strategic guidance.
• Drive modernization initiatives and enable AI-native platforms and GenAI-enabled solutions.

Skills

Communication

Problem solving

Relationship building

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Advanced degree or PhD (optional)

Job description

About Us

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

Overview:

At Visa, we are reimagining the future of global commerce.

The Payment Products Development (PPD) Architecture & Consulting team partners with Product, Engineering, and Business leaders to define technology strategy, architect next-generation payment solutions, modernize platforms, and accelerate innovation across Visa's global payment ecosystem.

Our team helps shape the technology foundations that power billions of payment interactions worldwide by simplifying complexity, guiding strategic investments, establishing architecture standards, and enabling scalable, resilient, secure, intelligent, and future-ready solutions.

As Visa continues its transformation toward open platforms, cloud-native solutions, and AI-powered experiences, our architects play a critical role in defining the technologies that will power the next generation of payments, commerce, and financial services.

Role Summary:

As a Lead Systems Architect, you will help define the future of how the world moves money.

You will work at the intersection of business strategy, emerging technology, AI innovation, and global-scale engineering, influencing some of Visa's most important technology investments.

Your work will help shape products and platforms that process billions of transactions, enable new payment experiences, and power commerce across the globe.

In this role, you will:

• Define architecture strategies, target-state architectures, and technology roadmaps for Visa's strategic payment products and platforms.
• Lead the design of open, scalable, API-first platforms leveraging cloud-native architectures, event-driven systems, reusable services, and modern integration patterns.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Operations, and Business leaders to transform bold ideas into scalable, secure, resilient, and high-performing solutions.
• Lead architecture consulting engagements, providing strategic guidance, impact assessments, architecture reviews, and technology recommendations for critical initiatives.
• Drive modernization initiatives that evolve legacy platforms into interoperable, cloud-enabled, developer-friendly ecosystems.
• Architect and enable AI-native platforms and intelligent solutions utilizing GenAI, agentic workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), orchestration frameworks, and emerging AI capabilities.
• Leverage AI and automation to improve engineering productivity, operational efficiency, architecture analysis, and customer experiences.
• Establish architecture standards, reusable patterns, governance frameworks, and engineering best practices that improve quality, consistency, and speed of delivery.
• Define and execute proof-of-concept initiatives supporting strategic business objectives, platform modernization, and digital transformation programs.
• Identify opportunities where emerging technologies can improve scalability, resiliency, security, operational efficiency, or customer experience.
• Establish success criteria, measurable outcomes, and architectural evaluation frameworks for all POCs.
• Lead end-to-end POC activities including requirements gathering, solution design, implementation, testing, and executive presentation.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, develop proofs of concept, and influence Visa's long-term technology direction.
• Mentor engineers and architects while fostering innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence.

Projects You Will Be Part Of:

• Next-generation payment products and platform modernization initiatives.
• Open systems transformation programs focused on API enablement, interoperability, ecosystem integration, and platform simplification.
• AI-native and GenAI-enabled solutions that transform how technology teams design, build, test, deploy, and operate software.
• Cloud, data, API, and platform transformation programs.
• Strategic architecture roadmaps supporting Visa's global payment ecosystem.
• Cross-functional consulting engagements driving innovation, simplification, and business agility.
• Emerging technology initiatives exploring the future of payments, digital commerce, intelligent systems, and financial services.

Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days 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., Master's, MBA, JD, MD) or 4 years of work experience with a PhD, OR 13+ years of relevant work experience.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, OR an equivalent combination of education, training, and work experience.
• Deep experience designing and evolving large-scale distributed systems, platforms, and enterprise applications in high-availability environments.
• Strong experience architecting open, API-first, cloud-native systems using industry standards, microservices, event-driven architectures, modern integration patterns, and reusable platform services.
• Experience in payments, fintech, financial services, commerce, or other highly scaled transaction-processing environments.
• Experience driving modernization from legacy or tightly coupled systems to scalable, interoperable, and loosely coupled architectures.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, or enabling AI and GenAI-powered solutions, including intelligent workflows, agentic systems, AI-assisted engineering capabilities, RAG frameworks, or AI-native platform features.
• Ability to translate business opportunities into practical, scalable technology solutions that deliver measurable customer and business value.
• Experience defining target-state architectures, technology roadmaps, architecture principles, and engineering standards.
• Experience influencing technical decisions and collaborating across Product, Engineering, Operations, and executive stakeholders.
• Strong communication, problem-solving, and relationship-building skills.
• Passion for innovation, continuous learning, and shaping the future of technology and payments.

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.
• 12+ years of progressively responsible experience in software engineering, systems architecture, solution architecture, platform engineering, or related technology disciplines.
• Experience building cloud-native platforms and leveraging platform engineering practices to improve developer productivity and operational excellence.
• Experience designing AI-native architectures utilizing foundation models, agent orchestration frameworks, vector databases, RAG architectures, AI observability, model governance, and responsible AI principles.
• Experience leading enterprise modernization initiatives involving cloud transformation, API enablement, platform simplification, or data architecture evolution.
• Experience developing technology strategy, innovation roadmaps, or architecture guidance for large-scale product organizations.
• Passion for mentoring others and building strong engineering and architecture communities.

Information for US Applicants

For roles located in the US, the estimated salary range for this position is $193,800.00 to $ 310,100.00 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.

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 protect veteran status. Visa will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.