Full-Time

Lead Software Engineer

Updated on 8/23/2026

Visa

Visa

10,001+ employees

Global digital payments network processing transactions

Compensation Overview

$173.1k - $276.8k/yr

+ Potential sales incentive payments + Bonus + Equity

Bellevue, WA, USA

Hybrid

At least three days in the office per week are required.

Bachelor's, Master's, MBA, PhD, JD, MD

Category
Software Engineering (1)
Required Skills
LLM
Kubernetes
Agile
Incident Response
Distributed Systems
Apache Kafka
Cryptography
OAuth

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Requirements
  • At least 10 years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor's degree, at least 7 years with an advanced degree, at least 4 years with a PhD, or at least 13 years of relevant work experience.
  • Expertise in designing and scaling mission-critical distributed systems.
  • Experience setting technical direction and influencing strategy across teams.
  • Expert proficiency in modern programming languages and system design.
  • Mastery of cloud platforms including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, and distributed architecture.
  • Deep experience with event-driven systems, Kafka, and high-throughput data processing.
  • Experience with security architecture, including OAuth 2.0, JSON Web Tokens, mutual TLS, encryption, and identity and access management.
  • Experience pioneering artificial-intelligence-enabled engineering practices at organizational scale.
  • Deep understanding of payment processing and transaction lifecycle.
  • Knowledge of payment capture processing and event enrichment.
  • Experience with file transfer protocols such as SFTP and batch processing.
  • Experience in payments, financial services, or high-scale transaction processing.
  • Experience with artificial intelligence and machine learning at scale, including production deployment of intelligent systems.
  • Experience with PCI-DSS, SOX, and financial-services regulatory compliance.
  • Understanding of payment network protocols including Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
  • Experience with event correlation and transaction matching.
  • Knowledge of retry mechanisms, dead-letter queues, and event replay.
  • Experience with data serialization formats including Avro, Protobuf, and JSON.
  • Understanding of exactly-once processing and idempotency patterns.
Responsibilities
  • Design and build scalable, secure, and resilient software systems supporting Visa’s Acceptance Solutions platform and global transaction processing capabilities.
  • Set technical direction and influence architectural standards for distributed systems, platform reliability, scalability, security, and reusability.
  • Lead development of mission-critical transaction-processing solutions supporting high-volume payment flows, event-driven processing, and real-time data movement.
  • Collaborate with product, architecture, security, operations, and engineering teams to create design artifacts and deliver software solutions.
  • Solve complex technical challenges across cloud-native platforms, distributed architecture, event streaming, API security, and payment lifecycle management.
  • Contribute hands-on to product quality, platform modernization, value-added services, and new business flows.
  • Leverage cloud platforms, Kubernetes, Kafka, and artificial-intelligence-enabled engineering practices to advance payment capabilities.
  • Mentor engineers, influence technical leaders, and promote engineering excellence and continuous learning.
  • Lead the architecture, design, development, enhancement, and modernization of software solutions for the transaction-processing platform.
  • Develop secure, scalable, high-quality code that complies with design specifications, engineering standards, and security best practices.
  • Provide hands-on technical leadership for complex software-development efforts while influencing technical direction across multiple teams.
  • Drive design and code reviews addressing performance, resiliency, observability, scalability, security, and maintainability.
  • Identify and implement automation across development, testing, deployment, monitoring, and operational workflows.
  • Partner with product owners, architects, security teams, operations teams, and engineering stakeholders to align technical solutions with customer and business objectives.
  • Use production telemetry, system analysis, and operational insights to recommend improvements to architecture, code, processes, and platform reliability.
  • Support agile delivery, release readiness, on-call rotations, incident response, root-cause analysis, and continuous improvement of production systems.
  • Guide adoption of cloud-native development, event-driven architecture, secure integration patterns, and AI-enabled development workflows.
  • Mentor senior engineers, develop technical talent, and contribute to reusable frameworks, architecture documentation, and engineering best practices.
Desired Qualifications
  • At least 12 years of work experience with a Bachelor's degree, 8–10 years with an advanced degree, or at least 6 years with a PhD.
  • At least 15 years of experience with progressive technical leadership responsibilities.
  • A demonstrated track record as a technical leader with organization-wide impact.
  • Proven ability to solve complex problems spanning multiple technical domains.
  • Experience working with executive leadership on technical strategy.
  • A recognized record of expertise in distributed systems, such as publications, speaking engagements, or patents.
  • A track record of building and evolving platforms serving billions of transactions.
  • A history of developing engineers who have grown into senior technical roles.

Visa operates a global digital payments network that connects consumers, businesses, banks, and governments to enable electronic card payments. Its system moves money through a card-based flow: a merchant request, card authorization via Visa, funds settlement between banks, and data processing, with fees earned on transactions and services. The company differentiates itself with its worldwide network, large client base, and partnerships that expand access to digital payments while supporting sustainable commerce. Its goal is to widen financial inclusion and provide convenient, secure electronic payments for a growing share of global commerce.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

N/A

Total Funding

$9.6M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

1958

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • June 2026 stablecoin settlement pilots reached a $7 billion annualized run rate.
  • Visa expanded OpenAI agentic commerce, positioning payments inside AI shopping workflows.
  • Visa cut 2,600 jobs in July 2026, freeing capital for higher-growth products.

What critics are saying

  • DOJ's debit monopoly case seeks a trial in late 2027 or 2028.
  • June 2026 swipe-fee settlement reduces fees and kills the Honor All Cards rule.
  • Stablecoin networks from Circle, Stripe, and banks route payments around Visa within two years.

What makes Visa unique

  • VisaNet processes billions; global acceptance and fraud controls remain unmatched.
  • June 10, 2026, Visa launched Agentic Registry, Agent Score, and OpenAI payments integration.
  • Visa's network plus credentialing lets banks and merchants settle through one trusted rail.

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Benefits

Health Insurance.

Life Insurance.

Dental Insurance.

Disability Insurance.

Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance.

Company News

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HoneyCoin raises $4.9M for expansion

Kenyan fintech HoneyCoin raised $4.9 million in seed funding to expand its stablecoin cross-border payment services into Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Led by Flourish Ventures, the round included TLcom Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, and Visa Ventures. HoneyCoin processes $150 million monthly, serving 350 enterprise clients. The funds will be used to hire executives, secure licenses, and expand into new markets, with plans for new products by Q3 2025.

Business Wire
May 15th, 2025
Nekuda Raises $5M Led by Madrona, Together with Amex Ventures and Visa Ventures, to Power Agentic Payments

Nekuda raises $5M led by Madrona, Amex Ventures & Visa Ventures to power agentic aayments. For the infrastructure of the future of online commerce.

Forbes
May 6th, 2025
Visa Invests in BVNK, $50M Funding

Visa Ventures has invested in stablecoin infrastructure platform BVNK, marking Visa's first direct investment in a stablecoin payments player. This move supports the future of stablecoins in payments, enhancing BVNK's credibility and penetration with Visa's partners. BVNK, which raised $50 million in a Series B round in December 2024, processes $12 billion in annualized volume and offers solutions for B2B and B2C payments using stablecoins.