Sr. Director - Acceptance Sales Engineering

Visa•San Francisco, CA

8h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Director of Sales Engineering will be a key member of Visa’s Value Added Services team, responsible for leading the technical pre-sales function Acceptance Solutions in North America. This role will help clients, partners and internal sales teams understand how Visa’s Acceptance Solutions solve real business and technical challenges. This leader will sit at the intersection of sales, product and technology, translating client needs into practical solution approaches and helping teams communicate Visa’s value in a clear, compelling way. You will guide a team responsible for technical discovery, solution design, demonstrations, proof-of-concept activity, proposal support, and technical objection handling across the sales cycle. This position will be based in the San Francisco Bay area with minimal travel expected. The role reports to the VP, Acceptance Solutions for North America. The ideal candidate brings strong people leadership, deep pre-sales or solution consulting experience, and a solid understanding of payments, fintech, APIs, integrations, and enterprise software environments. You should be equally comfortable in executive client conversations, technical workshops, and internal strategy discussions.

Requirements

12 years of relevant experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 10 years of relevant work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA/JD/MD) or 5 years relevant work experience with a PhD
Deep experience in payments, fintech, financial services, or banking technology, including knowledge of payment processing and digital acceptance solutions.
Significant experience in pre-sales engineering, solutions consulting, technical sales, software engineering, technical support, or other customer-facing technical roles.
Experience supporting complex enterprise sales cycles and working across multiple stakeholders, including business, product, and technical teams.
Experience leading or mentoring teams in a fast-paced, client-facing environment.
Technical ability to build and demonstrate working prototypes within enterprise environments using APIs, SDKs and so forth.
Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Proven ability to lead technical discovery sessions, live demos, proofs of concept, and solution workshops for enterprise clients.
Demonstrated technical ability to build and demonstrate working integrations across enterprises.
Experience developing technical proposals, RFP responses, and solution documentation.
Strong executive presence with the ability to build credibility with external clients, internal sales teams, and cross-functional product leaders.
A practical, customer-focused approach to problem solving, with the ability to balance strategic thinking and hands-on execution.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to establish effective relationships with all levels including executive management.

Nice To Haves

15 or more years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD, PhD).

Responsibilities

Lead and develop the Acceptance Solutions sales engineering team in North America, including hiring, coaching, deal flow and performance management.
Drive technical discovery and client solution design by working with clients and internal stakeholders to define architectures, integration approaches and recommended implementation approaches.
Champion client-centric solutions jointly with solutions and product and be an advocate for client needs throughout the product development and delivery process.
Partner closely with sales to ensure an efficient management of opportunities that are effectively validated with deep discovery, working prototypes and detailed designs and will help clients go live quickly.
Collaborate with implementation teams to facilitate an effective handover and transfer of detailed knowledge of client needs.
Oversee technical presentations, demos and workshops with internal and external stakeholders that clearly explain complex capabilities in simple, client-relevant terms.
Set the standard for technical expertise across the team through personal example and by instituting a culture of continuous learning, psychological safety and technical excellence.
Collaborate with product and solutions teams to capture and synthesize client feedback so the voice of the customer is reflected in product requirements and prioritization.