Sr. Director, Data Science

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

To ensure that Visa’s payment technology is truly available to everyone, everywhere requires the success of our key bank or merchant partners and internal business units. The North America Data Science group supports these partners by using our extraordinarily rich data set that spans more than 3 billion cards globally and captures more than 100 billion transactions in a single year. Our focus lies on building creative solutions that have an immediate impact on the business of our highly analytical partners. We work in complementary teams comprising members from Data Science and various groups at Visa. To support our rapidly growing group we are looking for a Sr. Director, Data Science who are equally passionate about the opportunity to use Visa’s rich data to tackle meaningful business problems.

Essential Functions:

• Lead data science team supporting issuers or merchants, including project oversight, coaching and professional development
• Manage offshore relationships, including vendor management, performance tracking and onboarding/offboarding activities
• Manage Data Engineering relationships, including creating and maintaining roadmaps and prioritizations
• Manage 5 to 10 projects in parallel, from conception to completion utilizing a team of 5 to 7 experienced professionals
• Experience building and managing teams of data scientists
• Strong analytical skills, with demonstrated intellectual and analytical rigor and ability to work with large data sets to synthesize key impacts for clients.
• Develop propensity, segmentation, and other predictive models to drive business impact
• Proactively engage with clients and Visa client leadership in regular strategic & planning discussions, cultivate and manage a pipeline of work with clients
• Develop frameworks, approaches, solutions, and recommendations that effectively and efficiently address the most impactful opportunities and challenges.
• Partner with peers in other functional areas (e.g., marketing, analytics, risk, innovation) and across global regional teams to execute projects in ways that leverage the breadth and depth of Visa’s resources
• Executive Presence including excellent communication and presentation skills, written and verbal and ability to communicate at all levels within large organizations.
• Demonstrated leadership, managerial and collaboration capabilities, particularly with those who are not direct reports as may be found in a matrixed organization.

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

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 10 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA /JD/MD), or a minimum of 5 years of work experience with a PhD

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
• 4+ years of experience applying data science to solve problems for issuers, acquirers, processors, or merchants
• 3+ years of experience leading 3+ data scientists in machine learning projects
• Recent experience working with and presenting to clients, such as issuers, acquirers, processors, or merchants
• Recent experience coordinating offshore relationships and Data Engineering activities
• Expertise with modern distributed systems, including both Hadoop/SQL and Apache Spark
• Expertise with one or more data analytics/programming tools such as R/Python
• Expertise in the application of predictive modeling and machine learning techniques
• 5+ years of working in payments industry (bank, credit union, Fintech) or management-consulting firm
• Demonstrated knowledge of software development, MLOps or data product development
• Build and experiment with machine learning and Generative AI models by applying a variety of statistical and computational techniques.
• Apply AI-enabled tools to streamline everyday work, including data exploration and model development.
• Excellent communication, storytelling, and presentation skills

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 204,000 to 420,000 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.