Sr Data Scientist

Visa•Foster City, CA

10d•$161,400 - $258,500•Hybrid

About The Position

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. 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 Internal Data & Analytics 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. This Senior Data Scientist will partner with our North America FP&A organization to embed advanced analytics and data science capabilities directly into finance decision‑making. This role will partner closely with FP&A leaders to transform large, complex datasets into actionable insights across revenue, cost of volume, macroeconomic drivers, and strategic growth pillars (including Visa Commercial Solutions and Visa Direct). The ideal candidate will combine strong statistical and modeling expertise with a practical understanding of financial drivers, helping advance FP&A’s goal of moving from descriptive reporting toward predictive, diagnostic, and scenario‑based analysis. This role will support multiple high‑impact analytical domains across North America, serving as a shared data science resource for our North America FP&A Team.

Requirements

5 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelors Degree or at least 2 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 0 years of work experience with a PhD
Extracting and aggregating data from large data sets using SQL/Hive or Spark
Analyzing large data sets using programming languages such as Python, R, SQL and/or Spark in a modern IDE environment (VSCode, Pycharm)
Generating and visualizing data-based insights in software such as Tableau or Power BI, or visualization coding frameworks such as GGPlot, Plotly
Demonstrated ability to translate complex analytics into business and financial insights.
Comfort working in a matrixed environment with multiple senior stakeholders.
4+ years’ experience in data-based decision-making or quantitative analysis
Experience supporting FP&A, finance, strategy, or economics teams.
Familiarity with payments, financial services, transaction‑based businesses, or unit‑economics‑driven models.
Exposure to macroeconomic analysis, forecasting, or scenario modeling.
Experience preparing materials for senior leadership or executive audiences, communicating evidence based insights, and conveying relevant recommendations
Experience using Generative programming tools (Claud Code, Codex, CoPilot, etc...) to accelerate development efficiency without over-reliance and loss of applicability
Data mining and statistical modeling (e.g., regression modeling, clustering techniques, decision trees, etc.)
Running projects from scoping to delivery, and engaging with internal/external partners
Strong analytical curiosity with a problem‑first mindset.
Ability to work independently while managing multiple parallel workstreams.
Comfortable navigating ambiguity and translating open‑ended questions into structured analyses.
Clear communicator who can bridge data science, finance, and strategy.
Highly collaborative and service‑oriented, with a strong sense of ownership.

Nice To Haves

6 or more years of work experience with a Bachelors Degree or 4 or more years of relevant experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or up to 3 years of relevant experience with a PhD
Degree in Statistics, Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, Economics, Data Science, Business Analytics, Computer Science, Finance, or a related technical field

Responsibilities

Apply big data techniques (including artificial intelligence) to analyze high‑volume, high‑granularity datasets across transactions, volumes, pricing, and client behavior.
Design and build statistical and econometric models, including regressions, forecasts, scenario analyses, and sensitivity analyses, to explain and predict financial performance.
Develop repeatable analytical frameworks (not one‑off analyses) that can be reused across planning cycles, forecasts, and strategic reviews.
Translate complex analytical results into clear, executive‑ready narratives for FP&A leadership and business stakeholders that go beyond insights to strategic recommendations
Develop visualizations to make your sophisticated analyses accessible to a broad audience
Find opportunities to craft products out of analyses that are suitable for multiple use cases within NA FP&A
Assess the efficiency and accuracy of new data sources and data gathering techniques
Develop custom data models and algorithms to apply to data sets
Partner with a variety of Visa teams to provide comprehensive solutions for NA FP&A use cases
Synthesize ideas/proposals in writing and engage in productive discussions with external or internal partners
Provide mentorship in modern analytic techniques and business applications to unlock the value of Visa’s unique data set, in keeping with market trends, client needs and emerging techniques
Perform deep-dive analyses using Visa’s large, detailed database of spend volumes and transactions – use this analysis to inform forecasts and drive business decisions
Quantify macroeconomic variables (e.g., inflation, consumer spend, interest rates, FX, employment) and their impact on our North America business performance.
Partner closely with the Drivers team to integrate Visa data and macro drivers into forecasting and outlook analysis.
Build and enhance analytical models linking transaction volumes to cost behavior, including sensitivity analysis, scenario modeling, and what-if frameworks to assess impacts on CoV
Support the Cost of Volume team with scalable, data‑driven cost elasticity and marginal cost analyses, including automated analytical tools and repeatable workflows for monitoring trends and diagnosing underlying drivers.
Analyze revenue drivers, pricing dynamics, and client‑level economics.
Support the revenue analytics and consolidation team with deepening client profitability, pricing effectiveness, and revenue yield insights.
Partner with our VCS FP&A team to support analytics across commercial payments, buyer/supplier flows, pricing, yields and growth initiatives within VCS.
Support our Visa Direct FP&A team with analytical insights across transaction and ATS growth by clients/programs, cross-border performances, pricing, and yields.
Work with large datasets across SQL‑based environments, Python/R notebooks, and enterprise data platforms.
Partner with FP&A, Finance Systems, and Data teams to ensure data quality, consistency, and scalability.
Build analytical outputs that feed into planning, forecasting, and performance management processes.
Where appropriate, automate recurring analyses and calculations to reduce manual FP&A effort.