Chief SW Engineer

Visa

Confirmed live yesterday High trust
Hybrid

Quick summary

Work type
Hybrid
Location
Foster City, CA
Salary
$230,500–$369,400 / yr
Employment
Full-time
Posted
9 days ago
Freshness
Confirmed live yesterday

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $216k
This role $300k
$137k $394k
below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 95% of similar roles. Most pay $177,737–$254,237 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $300k versus about $216k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Visa

Visa Inc. is the world''s largest payment network, enabling digital payments for consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments through its global processing network and branded card products. Industry: Payments Technology & Financial Services

Visa currently has 104 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $154,900–$248,200 across 99 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Visa

At a glance

TL;DR · Chief SW Engineer

JOB TITLE: Chief SW Engineer The Chief SW Engineer leads the design, building, and operationalization of production AI systems across the enterprise. This hands-on role involves setting architecture standards for agentic AI, generative applications, and ML platforms while shipping reference systems. You will build engineering systems including platforms, patterns, evals, safety controls, and developer experience tools to enable business domains to adopt AI with security and compliance. Key responsibilities include architecting multi-agent workflows, RAG, and hybrid classical ML systems. You will utilize Python, TypeScript, Java, or Go to develop APIs, data pipelines, and infrastructure as code. The role requires deep fluency in foundation model APIs, vector search, and LLMOps practices. You must navigate a regulated payments and fintech environment, ensuring responsible AI controls, data lineage, and reliability for high-risk systems.

What you'll do

  • Design and build production-grade AI platforms for model access, retrieval, evaluation, and observability.
  • Architect and ship flagship agentic systems featuring multi-agent workflows, RAG, and tool-use.
  • Establish LLMOps practices including cost telemetry, drift detection, and model versioning.
  • Develop SDKs and CI/CD templates to improve the developer experience for internal engineering teams.
  • Implement responsible AI controls for security, privacy, and bias in a regulated fintech environment.
  • Define technical roadmaps and standards for AI software architecture and high-risk systems.
  • Lead a bench of staff engineers and tiger-team leads as a player-coach on complex problems.
  • Drive build-vs-buy decisions for foundation models, vector stores, and orchestration frameworks.

What we're looking for

  • Must have 12+ years of relevant experience with a Bachelor’s Degree, 9+ years with an Advanced degree, 6+ years with a PhD, or 15+ years of experience.
  • Must have a Bachelor’s in Computer Science or a related field.
  • Must be able to work in an office setting at least 3 days per week.
  • Must be able to travel 5-10% of the time.
  • Demonstrated track record shipping AI or ML systems that run in production at enterprise scale (preferred).
  • Deep fluency with modern generative AI stacks including RAG, vector search, and agent orchestration (preferred).
  • Expert-level software craft in Python with experience in TypeScript, Java, or Go (preferred).
  • Experience designing platforms used by other engineering teams or in regulated industries (preferred).

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