Lead SW Engineer

Visa•Austin, TX

10d•$173,100 - $276,800•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a Lead Software Engineer to drive the architecture, design, and delivery of key platform capabilities within Visa’s Intelligent Commerce ecosystem. This role sits at the intersection of platform engineering, APIs, and agent-driven commerce experiences, and focuses on building scalable systems that power merchant integrations and intelligent workflows. You will partner closely with Product and Architecture to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions while providing hands-on leadership to engineering teams. This is a hands-on leadership role where you will lead design decisions, contribute to critical systems, and elevate engineering practices across the team.

Requirements

10 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree, OR 7 or more years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD), OR 4 years of work experience with a PhD, OR 13+ years of relevant work experience.
12+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems
Strong experience in Java and/or Python, microservices, and REST APIs
Proven experience designing and delivering cloud-native applications (Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD)
Strong expertise in system design, scalability, and high-availability architecture
Experience working closely with product and cross-functional partners to deliver complex systems
Exposure to AI-driven systems, intelligent platforms, or agent-based workflows
Technical Leadership: Leads system design and delivery of complex, high-impact initiatives
Architecture Depth: Strong experience designing scalable, distributed platform systems
Execution: Drives work from concept through production with accountability and ownership
Collaboration: Partners effectively with product, architecture, and engineering teams
Influence: Guides technical decisions and aligns stakeholders across teams
Mentorship: Develops engineers and elevates overall team capability
AI-Forward Thinking: Leverages modern tooling, including AI-assisted development practices

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with modern frontend frameworks (React/Angular) is a plus

Responsibilities

Lead the design and development of scalable backend services, APIs, and platform components supporting Intelligent Commerce use cases
Architect and build distributed, low-latency, highly available systems using modern cloud-native technologies
Partner with Product Managers to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions
Drive end-to-end delivery of complex initiatives, from system design through production deployment
Contribute hands-on to coding, system design, debugging, and performance optimization
Apply and evolve microservices architecture patterns, API design standards, and engineering best practices
Improve developer productivity and platform capabilities, including CI/CD, observability, and system reliability
Mentor engineers within the team, helping raise the technical bar and support career growth
Lead cross-team initiatives within the platform and collaborate with partner teams to resolve dependencies and deliver integrated solutions
Identify opportunities for reuse, simplification, and improved system performance and cost efficiency
Support adoption of AI-assisted development tools and workflows to improve engineering velocity and quality