Director - Data Engineering and ML

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

This role provides technical and delivery leadership within the Global Merchant Repository and Merchant Data Platform, owning critical merchant data products and analytical capabilities that support enterprise‑wide insights and AI/ML use cases. The position is responsible for end‑to‑end ownership of merchant data pipelines, data quality, and AI/ML readiness, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, and AI/ML teams to deliver reliable, scalable, and well‑governed data solutions.

The role plays a key part in enabling advanced analytics, machine learning, and GenAI‑driven merchant intelligence by ensuring trusted, production‑grade merchant data foundations.

Key Responsibilities:

Global Merchant Repository & Merchant Data Platform Ownership:

• Own and manage core merchant data assets and analytical pipelines within the Global Merchant Repository and Merchant Data Platform.
• Ensure data quality, consistency, availability, and performance for merchant datasets used across analytics and AI/ML workloads.
• Enforce strong data governance, metadata, lineage, and compliance standards.
• Act as a primary point of accountability for the operational health of merchant data products.

AI / ML & Advanced Analytics Enablement:

• Enable AI/ML and advanced analytics use cases by delivering well‑curated, AI‑ready merchant datasets.
• Partner with Data Scientists and ML Engineers on:
  • Feature engineering and reusable feature datasets
  • Model training, validation, and inference use cases
  • Data and feature quality considerations impacting model performance
• Support GenAI‑based merchant intelligence use cases, including retrieval‑augmented insights, embeddings, and natural‑language access to merchant data.
• Ensure AI/ML initiatives leverage trusted data and responsible AI practices.

Data Engineering & Delivery Leadership:

• Lead the design and evolution of large‑scale data pipelines supporting batch and near‑real‑time merchant analytics.
• Promote best practices in data modeling, pipeline reliability, testing, and operational readiness.
• Drive simplification and standardization across merchant data assets and analytical workflows.
• Provide technical leadership during production issues, enhancements, and platform changes.

Stakeholder Management & Team Leadership:

• Serve as a technical interface between business stakeholders and engineering teams.
• Translate business needs into scalable, data‑ and AI‑enabled solutions.
• Lead cross‑functional delivery across Data Engineering, Analytics, and AI/ML teams.
• Mentor and guide team members, setting high standards for engineering excellence and data discipline.

Essential Functions:

• Build and maintain enterprise‑scale merchant data pipelines.
• Ensure merchant data products meet defined SLAs for accuracy, timeliness, and availability.
• Enable AI/ML teams with high‑quality training data, features, and analytical datasets.
• Influence data architecture decisions impacting the Merchant Data Platform.
• Ensure compliance with data governance, privacy, security, and responsible AI standards.

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

Qualifications

10+ years of experience in data engineering, analytics platforms, or data product leadership.
5+ years of experience in leadership.
Strong experience owning large‑scale data platforms or critical data domains.
Proven ability to partner with AI/ML teams and support machine learning workflows.
Strong stakeholder management and cross‑functional leadership skills.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

Additional Information

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.