Sr. Director, Software Engineering

Visa•Austin, TX

6h•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a Sr. Director of Software Engineering who's a proven technology leader with a strong track record of delivering large-scale, complex products and services by influencing across diverse, global engineering teams and partnering closely with Product and Program stakeholders. This role owns the vision, strategy, and execution of web, mobile, and SDK applications across the portfolio. You will lead the design and delivery of scalable, secure, and accessible solutions, partnering with Product, Design, and Backend teams to create seamless, high-quality user experiences. You will drive rapid, high-quality feature delivery at scale while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and engineering excellence. Success requires balancing business priorities with operational rigor, security, privacy, and regulatory compliance. The ideal candidate embraces emerging technologies—especially AI—to accelerate internal productivity and fuel product innovation. You will lead multiple teams, align technology to business outcomes, and transform digital offerings through AI-powered enhancements and new solutions for banking and fintech partners. Experience in agile delivery, complex frontend/backend integrations, and high-volume transaction systems—ideally within payments—is strongly preferred. This leader thrives in dynamic environments, drives platform transformation, and identifies new revenue opportunities through technology and AI advancement.

Requirements

12+ years of relevant work experience and a Bachelors degree, OR 15+ years of relevant work experience
Proven experience managing software development teams delivering highly available enterprise level applications with fantastic quality.
Outstanding verbal, written, presentation, facilitation, and interaction skills, along with effective communication (both written and verbal) skills and the ability to present complex ideas in a clear, concise way.
Proven track record of coordinating multiple product and technical teams by removing roadblocks and solving complex problems collaboratively.
Strong at technical goal setting for a project with actionable success metrics.
Experience using AI to increase developer productivity and to launch AI-based new product offerings.
Experience with measuring a service from user experience perspective, setting, and tracking to SLAs and KPIs.
Ability to represent technical and business issues and solutions to multiple levels internally and externally to support organizational plans.
Ability to work in a complex organization to determine business and customer needs, providing the best solution to meet those needs.
Experience with Agile methodologies and software development lifecycle principles.
Ability to manage multiple competing top priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Ability to handle multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Nice To Haves

15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, or MD), PhD with 9+ years of experience
Payment industry experience is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

Responsible for the overall development life cycle with a focus on full system development and ownership.
Deliver products with complex technical interdependencies collaborating with cross geographical development and product teams. Collaborate with Product Office, Operations & Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Client Support and other Product Development teams in developing complete solutions.
Build a culture of engineering excellence (quality, security, performance, scalability, availability, resilience etc.) across your own teams and the entire organization.
Leverage GenAI to continually enhance our delivery methods and enhance or create products that disrupt the marketplace.
Partner with product owners in developing a strategy and roadmap that align with business goals.
Manage technical debt and costs within your product and organization budgets.
Influence adoption of best engineering practices, automations of software development, testing and deployment processes.
Manage the prioritization and delivery of enhancements and ongoing maintenance activities for multiple services.
Be responsible for the incident management, change, and problem management.
Hire, retain and grow high-performing and diverse global engineering teams.
Invest in the career development of your employees with a strong focus on mentorship and training.
Lead with a strong client focus mindset across organizations.
Handle routine daily activities such as coordination, coaching, mentoring, recruiting, budgeting, planning, delivery, quality, partner relationships, performance metrics, operations, efficiency, service level management, etc.
Recruit and manage an engineering team dedicated to the implementation of the technology organization strategy.