Sr. Director, Software Engineering

Visa•Austin, TX

3d•$212,600 - $372,300•Hybrid

About The Position

Visa is seeking a Senior Director of Commercial Platform Engineering to lead enterprise-scale engineering teams responsible for the strategy, architecture, development, and delivery of modern commercial payments platforms. The role oversees the full lifecycle of payment acceptance capabilities for suppliers, partners, and internal stakeholders, ensuring platforms are secure, scalable, resilient, and aligned with business growth objectives. The Senior Director will drive modernization, cloud transformation, automation, cross-platform integration, and GenAI-assisted engineering practices to improve engineering velocity, product quality, and developer effectiveness. The role operates at strategic and execution levels and partners closely with product, technology, operations, infrastructure, risk, and business executives to deliver platform outcomes. The position requires at least three days in the office, with the specific days confirmed by the Hiring Manager. Work hours vary according to department needs, and travel is required 5–10% of the time. The role is performed in an office setting and involves sitting and standing at a desk, communicating in person and by telephone, and frequently using standard office equipment such as telephones and computers.

Requirements

At least 12 years of relevant work experience and a bachelor's degree, or at least 15 years of relevant work experience.
Significant experience leading software engineering, platform engineering, or technology delivery organizations at scale.
Proven background managing managers and senior technical leaders in complex enterprise technology environments.
Deep experience architecting and delivering large-scale distributed systems, APIs, microservices, event-driven platforms, or high-volume transaction-processing systems.
Demonstrated success leading cloud modernization, platform transformation, automation, CI/CD, DevOps, and engineering excellence initiatives.
Experience driving enterprise-level technology strategy while maintaining execution discipline across multiple teams or portfolios.
Strong knowledge of security, resiliency, performance engineering, observability, data governance, and infrastructure operations.
Proven ability to manage executive stakeholders, influence cross-functional priorities, communicate trade-offs, and lead through ambiguity.
Excellent leadership, communication, decision-making, problem-solving, and organizational management skills.
Experience leading global or distributed engineering teams.
Ability to translate complex technical concepts into business impact for executive audiences.

Nice To Haves

15 or more years of experience with a bachelor's degree, or 12 years of experience with an advanced degree, or a PhD with 9 or more years of experience.
Strong understanding of commercial payments, payment acceptance, supplier platforms, partner ecosystems, or financial technology platforms.
Experience introducing or scaling GenAI-assisted engineering tools and practices to enhance productivity, quality, and delivery outcomes.
Experience in financial services, commercial payments, B2B payments, merchant or supplier acceptance, or enterprise transaction platforms.
Familiarity with public cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
Knowledge of compliance, risk, regulatory, or audit expectations within financial services environments.
Experience with API platforms, partner integrations, service-oriented architecture, microservices, cloud-native platforms, and enterprise integration patterns.
Track record of delivering modernization programs across legacy and cloud-native ecosystems.

Responsibilities

Lead platform engineering teams through the full lifecycle of commercial payments capabilities, including architecture, design, development, testing, deployment, reliability, and production support.
Set engineering strategy and technical direction for large-scale distributed payment platforms, emphasizing performance, scalability, resiliency, security, and operational excellence.
Own end-to-end delivery of enterprise platform initiatives, from concept and roadmap planning through execution, release deployment, and ongoing optimization.
Drive next-generation supplier and partner acceptance capabilities, enabling seamless integrations, improved user experiences, and expanded business value.
Lead modernization and cloud transformation, establishing standards for cloud adoption, platform migration, cross-platform integration, automation, and secure software development.
Champion GenAI-assisted engineering practices to improve development velocity, code quality, testing effectiveness, documentation, and developer productivity.
Provide executive leadership in agile delivery environments and ensure timely execution of strategic programs, committed modules, and product roadmap deliverables.
Oversee automation framework strategy, testing modernization, CI/CD practices, release governance, and continuous integration across engineering teams.
Partner with senior stakeholders and business leaders to define priorities, align technology investments with business outcomes, manage expectations, and resolve escalations.
Assess scope, risks, dependencies, and trade-offs, and communicate impacts and mitigation strategies to executive leadership, product teams, and cross-functional partners.
Represent engineering in planning forums, executive reviews, escalation discussions, architecture governance, and roadmap prioritization sessions.
Ensure data governance, infrastructure readiness, platform reliability, and compliance alignment across supported products and services.
Build, mentor, and develop high-performing engineering teams, fostering accountability, innovation, inclusion, engineering excellence, and continuous improvement.
Establish metrics and operating mechanisms to track delivery performance, quality, reliability, security posture, operational health, and developer effectiveness.