Principal Data Scientist

Job Description And Responsibilities

Payments has become a very active/hot area in the last couple of years, creating a strong demand for innovation. This will be a very exciting area in the next 5 to 10 years. Not only is VISA a leader in the payment industry and has been for a long time, but it is also quickly transitioning into a technology company that is fostering an environment for applying the latest technology to tackle exciting problems in this area.

Visa AI as a Service (VAIaS) operationalizes the delivery of AI and decision intelligence to ensure their ongoing business values. Built with composable AI capabilities, privacy-enhancing computation, and cloud native platforms, VAIaS automates the updates to data, models, and applications. Combined with strong AI governance, VAIaS optimizes the performance, scalability, interpretability and reliability of AI models and services. If you want to be in the exciting payment and AI space, learn fast, and make big impacts, Visa AI as a Service is an ideal place for you!

This position is for a Principal Data Scientist with strong Machine Learning System development experience, who will chip in to both strategic and tactic planning and execution to continuously advance AI Platform's vision and mission. In this position, you are first a passionate and versatile machine learning lead and system architect. Your responsibilities include addressing real smart-payment needs by using extensive payment data, focusing on the exploration of the scope and influence of generative models within financial payment domain, inventing and cultivating innovative generative AI solutions for VISA, and transitioning them to production. This role aims to fundamentally transform existing AI applications in the financial payment domain.

You will be an integral part of the leadership team, setting up technical roadmap, introducing the latest machine learning and system technology to the team, working with development managers and teams to identify and resolve technical challenges, and working with different products and data science teams to streamline the feature request and model onboarding.

This position will be based in Austin, TX and reporting to Head of Visa AI as a Service. If this sounds exciting, we want to chat and tell you more about our work culture and environment and see if this will be a good fit for both of us.

Essential Functions

• Collaborate with project teams, data science teams and development teams to drive the technical roadmap and guide development and implementation of new data driven business solutions.
• Drive technical standard and best practices, and continuously improve AI Platform engineering scalability.
• Architecture and design of AI Platform services including Machine Learning Engines, In Memory Computing Systems, Streaming Computing Systems, Distributed Data Systems and etc, in Golang, Java, and Python.
• Coordinate the implementation among development teams to ensure system performance, security, scalability and availability.
• Coaching and mentoring junior team members and evolving team talent pipeline.

This is a hybrid position. Hybrid employees can alternate time between both remote and office. Employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office 2-3 set days a week (determined by leadership/site), with a general guidepost of being in the office 50% or more of the time based on business needs.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 10 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA /JD/MD); or a minimum of 5 years of work experience with a PhD

Preferred Qualifications:

• Expert in innovative areas such as Machine Learning, Deep Learning, MLOps.
• Experience with hands-on development, solving a range of modeling problems, e.g Predictive Modeling, Reinforcement Learning, Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Proficient in software engineering, with the ability to develop large scale and low latency infrastructure for deep learning data, modeling, and system evaluation.
• Proficiency in using at least one mainstream deep learning frameworks (PyTorch/TensorFlow).
• Deep understanding of Transformer architectures and their applications.
• Familiarity with the latest advancements in LLMs and generative AI technologies.
• Author for publications at top-ranked, peer-reviewed AI conferences/journals.
• Expert in at least one of the following: Golang, Java, Python, or C/C++
• Experience with Big Data and analytics in general leveraging technologies like Hadoop, Spark, and MapReduce
• A background in the payment domain is a plus.

Additional Information

Work Hours: Varies upon the needs of the department.

Travel Requirements: This position requires travel 5-10% of the time.

Mental/Physical Requirements: This position will be performed in an office setting. The position will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, frequently operate standard office equipment, such as telephones and computers.

Visa is an EEO Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Visa will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.

Visa will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable local law, including the requirements of Article 49 of the San Francisco Police Code.

U.S. APPLICANTS ONLY: The estimated salary range for a new hire into this position is 173,100.00 to 225,000.00 USD, which may include potential sales incentive payments (if applicable). Salary may vary depending on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for bonus and equity. Visa has a comprehensive benefits package for which this position may be eligible that includes Medical, Dental, Vision, 401 (k), FSA/HSA, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, and Wellness Program.