Lead Software Engineer

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.

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Software Engineer to join Visa’s Shared Services Product Development organization. This role is ideal for a senior technologist who thrives as a lead generalist
, operating across infrastructure, security, scalability, and platform engineering
, while building foundational services that enable Visa’s global product ecosystem.

In this role, you will design and deliver Java/J2EE-based shared services that power multiple Visa products and platforms, influencing internal engineering standards for scalability, security, reliability, and reusability
. You will collaborate across Product, Engineering, Security, SRE, and Architecture teams to build resilient, cloud-native systems that support Visa’s mission at global scale.

• Design, build, and evolve core shared services that support Visa’s product development ecosystem and reach approximately 40% of the world’s population.
• Lead the development of scalable, secure, and reusable Java/J2EE-based services that serve as foundational platforms for multiple product teams.
• Act as a lead generalist
  , contributing across application architecture, infrastructure, security, and scalability to ensure shared services are enterprise-grade and future-ready.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to create architecture and design artifacts and deliver best-in-class software solutions used across Visa’s technical offerings.
• Drive continuous improvements in product quality, platform reliability, and operational excellence across shared services.
• Develop robust, highly available systems serving diverse use cases, including consumer-facing products, B2B platforms, and business-to-government solutions.
• Leverage modern technologies to build the next generation of Payment Services, Transaction Platforms, Real-Time Payments, and Buy Now Pay Later capabilities.
• Contribute to team and organizational growth through mentorship, technical leadership, and continuous learning initiatives.

• Provide deep technical leadership within Shared Services Product Development
  , with a strong understanding of how shared platforms enable downstream product innovation.
• Lead discovery and design sessions with product partners to translate business requirements into scalable, secure shared-service architectures.
• Define and formalize best practices and standards for Java/J2EE development
  , API design, security, and service scalability.
• Lead planning, piloting, and integration of new platform capabilities, including infrastructure enhancements, security controls, and AI-enabled tooling.
• Design and implement cloud-native, containerized services using Docker and Kubernetes
  , ensuring high availability, fault tolerance, and elastic scalability.
• Partner closely with Security teams to implement secure API gateways, authentication and authorization mechanisms, and compliance-driven architectures.
• Analyze systemic patterns across defects, incidents, and performance metrics, driving long-term platform improvements.

• Technical Leadership: Proven experience leading complex software initiatives across distributed systems and shared service platforms.
• Primary Language Expertise: Strong expertise in Java (Core Java, J2EE, RESTful services).
• Architecture & Scalability: Experience designing highly available, scalable, and secure distributed systems.
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Hands-on experience with container-based architectures using Docker and Kubernetes
  , and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Security: Strong understanding of secure API design,…