Software Engineer - Sr. Consultant level (Java & Python, GenAI, Cloud; 11-15 years' experience)

About Us Visa is a world leader in payments technology, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories, dedicated to uplifting everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

At Visa, you'll have the opportunity to create impact at scale — tackling meaningful challenges, growing your skills and seeing your contributions impact lives around the world.

Join Visa and do work that matters – to you, to your community, and to the world. Progress starts with you.

Job Description

Job Summary:

Software Development Engineers are expert problem-solvers and builders who design, implement, and improve software applications and systems. In this role, engineers spend approximately 60–75% of their time coding, working hands-on with code, data, and modern tools (including AI-assisted development, cloud services, and automation frameworks) to deliver secure, scalable, and high-quality technology solutions that drive business outcomes in the fintech sector. They collaborate with cross-functional teams – product managers, designers, data scientists, QA, operations, and compliance – to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions, all while adhering to best practices, security standards, and regulatory requirements.

As the technical lead of the Visa Assist AI platform, you will be a hands-on, technically deep, and influential engineer who owns the technical vision and delivery of a multi-agent AI architecture (Visa Assist) serving Visa's client-facing channels — Chat, Email, and Portal. This is a coding-intensive leadership role where you will architect, implement, and ship critical platform components while mentoring engineers, standardizing engineering practices, and aligning with stakeholders to shape the strategic roadmap for Visa's AI-powered client services.

Key Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with business stakeholders and leadership to interpret and translate requirements across the full VisaAssist portfolio — spanning inbound channels (Chat, Email, Portal), agent worker routing logic, and platform evolution roadmaps — incorporating feedback into technical architecture decisions and working code.
• Translate business requirements into strategic roadmaps and tactical solutions — including routing logic adjustments, guardrail tuning, knowledge base curation, and CRM/billing workflow improvements — while escalating potential design issues and downstream dependencies to appropriate stakeholders.
• Lead system design and architecture, personally architecting and building core infrastructure components: intent classification models, agent routing logic, MCP protocol adapters, and resilience patterns across the distributed multi-agent system.
• Drive program delivery across the full VisaAssist portfolio — intent classification & routing accuracy improvements, agent worker ecosystem (MsgProcessing, CrmDynamics, InvoiceInvestigator, ClientProfile, Transaction Management), MCP protocol adoption and expansion across external services (CRM, Invoice, CAD CP servers), and platform reliability.
• Write production code daily (60%+ of time), personally implementing the most complex features across the full stack — FastAPI endpoints, LangChain agent orchestration, Pydantic v2 schemas, async NATS handlers, and Docker/Kubernetes configurations.
• Establish and lead engineering standards by implementing reference patterns for the Python / FastAPI / LangChain / Pydantic v2 stack, building shared library modules, and coding MCP server integration adapters (OAuth2 + SSE, mTLS + API Key, REST) that the team adopts as platform-wide standards.
• Implement LangChain agent patterns including multi-hop MCP and dynamic schema composition; prototype emerging technologies (agentic AI frameworks, MCP protocol evolution, RAG advancements) and recommend technical direction based on hands-on evaluation.
• Apply advanced debugging techniques to resolve the hardest production issues spanning multiple microservices, NATS messaging, and external service integrations, proactively flagging and addressing systemic risks.
• Design and implement observability strategies using OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and LangSmith across the full request lifecycle (inbound channel → intent worker → NATS → agent worker → external service), with comprehensive distributed tracing and SLA target definitions for each agent worker and external service dependency.
• Build operational resilience — implement NATS messaging failure recovery patterns, manage platform uptime, and drive SLA adherence for Chat/Portal real-time latency, Email throughput, and external service availability.
• Lead code reviews and enforce coding standards — including Pydantic validation patterns, LangChain agent design, async FastAPI endpoints, and security-first practices — ensuring quality across the full Python/FastAPI codebase.
• Partner with cybersecurity teams to address security assessments and implement solutions for findings including API Key Auth, mTLS, OAuth2, PCI-DSS log redaction, and input guardrails (CSAM, injection, SSRF, abuse filtering); teach security-first development practices across the team.
• Mentor and develop engineers through hands-on pair programming, code reviews, and technical guidance on LangChain agent patterns, MCP protocol implementation, and RAG pipeline optimization; empower team members to own agent worker design and individual microservice delivery.
• Remain current in skills by continuously evaluating emerging agentic AI frameworks, MCP protocol evolution, and RAG advancements, and investing in team capability growth across the VisaAssist architecture and NATS pub/sub patterns.
• Forecast labor and support fiscal planning — project labor needs for agent worker development, infrastructure capacity, and LLM/GenAI API cost projections; support workforce planning during QBR accounting for platform growth, operational burden, and technical debt reduction.
• Keep stakeholders and leadership informed of progress across epics, program delivery milestones, and overall platform health for the VisaAssist agent ecosystem.

Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• 11-15 years' work experience of work experience with a Bachelor's Degree or with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters/MBA/JD/MD) or at least 3 years of work experience with a PhD
• Experience in Java EE technologies, Open-Source frameworks including Spring, React, JavaScript, HTML5, and Web Services (REST/RPC).
• Experience on microservices, containerization, and ability to quickly build and drive team to support future systems.
• Experience evaluating business requirements and translating them into technical design documents.
• Experience in Design Patterns and data modelling.
• Experience in Kafka and other No-SQL databases.
• Solid understanding and experience working with Database systems like MySQL and MSSQL.
• Experience working on application servers like Apache Tomcat, OS platforms like UNIX, Windows, and Linux.
• Experience with build automation tools including Maven/Gradle/Jenkins/Grunt.
• Exposure and good knowledge on web application security.
• Experience in version control tools: BitBucket, Git or similar.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Programming Languages: Expert-level Python development including async/await architectures, high-performance API design (FastAPI), advanced type systems (Pydantic v2), and serialization optimization (orjson). Ability to set and enforce coding standards across teams.
• AI/ML Architecture: Deep expertise in LLM integration patterns, agentic AI frameworks (LangChain), RAG pipeline architecture, intent classification systems, and prompt engineering at scale. Experience evaluating and selecting AI models for production use.
• Protocols & Integration: Expert knowledge of Model Context Protocol (MCP) JSON-RPC 2.0, REST API design, Server-Sent Events (SSE), mTLS, and OAuth2. Experience defining integration standards and protocol strategies across multiple services.
• Distributed Systems: Extensive experience with event-driven architectures, NATS/Kafka messaging systems, agent-to-agent communication patterns, distributed caching, connection pooling, and failover strategies.
• API & Platform Architecture: Proven track record of designing and scaling API platforms, defining authentication strategies (OAuth2, API Key, mTLS, X-API-Key), and building resilient microservice ecosystems.
• Infrastructure & DevOps: Expert knowledge of Kubernetes orchestration strategies, Docker security hardening (non-root, RHEL base), CI/CD pipeline design, and cloud-native deployment patterns.
• Observability & SRE: Experience designing observability architectures using OpenTelemetry (distributed tracing), Prometheus (metrics/alerting), and LLM-specific tooling (LangSmith). Ability to define SLA frameworks and incident prevention strategies.
• Security & Compliance: Deep understanding of PCI-DSS compliance requirements, security architecture (mTLS, OAuth2, API Key management), input guardrails design (injection prevention, SSRF, CSAM), and log redaction strategies for sensitive data.
• SDLC & Engineering Excellence: Experience establishing engineering standards, code quality frameworks (SonarQube), testing strategies, and release management processes across teams.
• People & Program Leadership: Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, delegate ownership, drive technical roadmaps, and align with business stakeholders on strategic priorities.
• Fiscal Planning: Experience with labor forecasting, workforce planning, cost optimization (LLM token usage, infrastructure sizing), and QBR planning processes.
• GenAI Strategy: Ability to evaluate emerging Generative AI capabilities, recommend model selection and drive adoption of AI-assisted development practices across the organization.

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.