Data Scientist

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.

The Global Data Science group supports our bank and merchant partners by using our extraordinarily rich data sets that span more than 4 billion cards globally and captures more than 190 billion transactions in a single year. Our focus lies on building creative solutions that have an immediate impact on the business of our highly analytical partners. To support our rapidly growing scope of work capabilities at the intersection of data science, analytics and AI, we are looking for Senior Data Scientists who are passionate and leading team members and solving complex data problems using Visa rich dataset and technical toolkit. You will join one of the Data Science focus areas (e.g., merchants, issuers, enablers, fintechs) and have opportunities to engage across the Data Science teams, providing broad exposure to Visa’s business.

Essential Functions

• Use and build new predictive models to innovate and optimize customer experiences, revenue generation, data insights, advertising targeting and other business outcomes
• Be an out-of-the-box problem solver who is passionate about applying data science techniques and innovate thinking to our unique data to help our clients both innovate and solve the problems they face
• Leverage AI coding tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cline, OpenAI Codex) to accelerate development
• Apply data science and GenAI techniques to analyze transaction data and deliver actionable client insights
• Build agentic AI systems with multi-step reasoning, tool use, and memory for complex payment decisioning workflows
• Work with your data science colleagues as well as other teams across Visa to guide the critical thinking for our clients by using the data and tools available to you
• Connect with clients as well as client teams regarding the results and strategic recommendations advised by your analyses
• Develop visualizations to make your sophisticated analyses accessible to a broad audience
• Find opportunities to craft products out of analyses that are suitable for multiple clients
• Work with partners throughout the organization to explore opportunities for using Visa data to drive business solutions

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager.

Basic Qualifications:

• 2 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD, or PhD)

Preferred Qualifications:

• 3 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or more than 2 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD)
• 2+ years’ experience in data-based decision-making or quantitative analysis, including exposure to LLMs and GenAI applications
• Bachelor’s degree in an analytical field such as statistics, operations research, economics, computer science or many others (graduate degree is a plus)
• Experience in understanding and analyzing data using Python or Other statistical software
• Experience with extracting and aggregating data from large data sets using SQL, Hive, Spark or other tools
• Experience and comfort with machine learning techniques and accompanying packages.
• Experience with LLM orchestration frameworks (LangChain or similar), vector databases, and embedding models
• Competence in Excel, PowerPoint and Tableau
• Previous exposure to financial services, credit cards or merchant analytics is a plus, but not required

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 116,800.00 to 180,600.00 USD per year, 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.