What are the responsibilities and job description for the Lead Applied Scientist position at Visa?
We are looking for a versatile, curious, and highly technical Lead Applied Scientist to shape the future of AI and data products across the Visa Acceptance Platform. You will partner with engineers, product leaders, and AI researchers to design, deploy, and scale advanced machine learning solutions across a global ecosystem.
In this role, you will:
- Define technical strategy for AI/ML models supporting global payments and next-generation agentic commerce experiences.
- Mentor a high-performing team and establish best-in-class practices for data science, MLOps, and model governance.
- Lead end‑to‑end development of large-scale data solutions—from data extraction through modeling, deployment, and monitoring.
- Drive platform transformation initiatives that enhance delivery efficiency, improve model performance, and enable new product opportunities.
What You Will Do (Essential Functions)
- Provide technical leadership in designing scalable, maintainable, and secure data science solutions; set standards for modeling, coding patterns, and MLOps.
- Lead efforts to improve data extraction, data quality, lineage, and governance, partnering with engineering teams across the platform.
- Develop strategies for wrangling, modeling, and leveraging high-volume structured and unstructured data using modern AI/ML techniques.
- Guide conversations with Product, Cybersecurity, and Engineering to clarify complex business and technical requirements and ensure secure deployment.
- Identify emerging patterns across massive datasets to influence platform‑wide enhancements, roadmap decisions, and AI-driven product improvements.
- Drive modernization opportunities including software upgrades, security patches, and infrastructure improvements.
This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager.