Principal Data Scientist

Principal Data Scientist

Visa is a global leader in payments and technology, processing over 259 billion transactions each year. Our mission is to connect the world through an innovative, reliable, and secure payments network, uplifting everyone, everywhere.

Overview
We are looking for a versatile, curious, and energetic Principal Data Scientist to join our team of passionate engineers. As a key member of a multi‑functional development team, you will build and test products that serve a truly global customer base, influence data science strategy, and push the boundaries of AI in payments.

• Lead the definition, execution, and delivery of product and technical features at scale while promoting a diverse, cross‑functional culture.
• Mentor and provide technical expertise to ensure extensible, maintainable, and reusable code, setting coding standards, guidelines, and security best practices for AI and data science.
• Drive efficiencies in data extraction, quality, and completeness through advanced data wrangling, modeling, and AI techniques.
• Adhere to data management principles, governance, and tooling to maintain product data quality.
• Collaborate with product owners, business partners, and cybersecurity to clarify complex requirements and identify system dependencies.
• Architect and document complex product designs using existing architecture patterns.
• Establish unit‑testing requirements, lead code reviews, and coordinate user acceptance testing with customers across multiple domains.
• Analyze trends across relevant data sources, plan platform‑wide updates, and define roadmaps for software upgrades and security patches.

• 12+ years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree, or 9+ years with an advanced degree (Masters, MBA, JD, MD), or 6+ years with a PhD. Alternatively, 15+ years of relevant experience.

• 15+ years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12+ years with an advanced degree (Masters, MBA, JD, or MD), or 9+ years with a PhD.
• 6+ years of experience solving data problems using technologies such as Hadoop, Hive, Kafka, Redis, No
  
  SQL, or RDBMS.
• 4+ years of experience designing, implementing, and maintaining ETL pipelines.
• 3+ years of experience deploying code into production.
• 3+ years of experience supporting real‑time systems.
• Expertise in at least one of the following programming languages:
  Go, Java, or C/C++.
• Expertise with web service standards and related patterns (REST, gRPC).
• Experience developing large‑scale, enterprise‑class distributed systems requiring high availability, low latency, and strong data consistency.
• Experience implementing low‑latency, distributed services using open‑standard technologies.
• Experience with Big Data and analytics platforms such as Hadoop, Spark, Flink, or Map Reduce.

• Work Hours:
  
  Varies by departmental needs.
• Travel: 5‑10% of the time.
• Mental/
  
  Physical Requirements:
  
  Office setting; requires sitting, standing, and use of standard office equipment.

Visa is an Equal Employment Opportunity 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 also considers applicants with criminal histories in accordance with EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.