Principal ML Scientist

Visa Visa · Fintech · Austin, TX

Principal ML Scientist at Visa, focusing on leading the technology strategy and execution for a GenAI platform and overall AI posture, with a strong emphasis on inference systems and integrating Agentic AI. The role involves architecting, designing, and coding scalable distributed systems, promoting best practices, and providing technology leadership in GenAI.

What you'd actually do

  1. Define and drive the overall technical strategy and architecture, ensuring alignment with business goals while accelerating innovation and time to market.
  2. Architect, design, and code highly scalable, reliable, and secure distributed systems and platforms.
  3. Lead the adoption of Generative AI and Agentic AI to boost developer productivity, empower the underlying technologies to build innovative business solutions and products.
  4. Establish and promote best practices for software development, including CI/CD automation and DevOps, to improve efficiency and quality across the SSDLC.
  5. Actively contribute to critical projects by developing key modules, core frameworks, automation tools, and proof-of-concepts to validate emerging ideas and technologies.

Skills

Required

  • 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 10 years of work experience with an Advanced degree
  • 15+ years in software engineering with a strong background in architecting large-scale, distributed systems.
  • Proficiency in languages like Java, Python, or GoLang
  • Experience with frameworks such as Spring, Node.js, React.
  • Experience with RESTful and gRPC APIs, microservices, and event-driven systems.
  • Strong skills in inference systems.
  • Proven experience leveraging Generative AI and Agentic AI to support productivity improvements and product innovation.
  • Familiarity with integrating AI solutions into existing platforms.
  • Strong understanding of API security, data encryption, and Hardware Security Modules (HSMs).
  • Experience in building secure applications and implementing security-first practices.
  • Proficiency in SQL and NoSQL databases (e.g., MSSQL, MongoDB).
  • Experience with distributed caching technologies like Redis.
  • Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP.
  • Strong understanding of DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, containerization (Docker), and orchestration tools (Kubernetes).
  • Demonstrated ability to automate SSDLC phases to improve efficiency and quality.
  • Experience with automated testing frameworks, code quality tools, and delivery pipelines.
  • Deep understanding of architectural patterns and best practices.
  • Ability to balance short-term and long-term technological decisions aligned with business goals.
  • Experience in designing and maintaining highly available (99.999%), reliable, active active critical systems.
  • Willingness to contribute directly to codebases and develop to validate new ideas and integrate beneficial emerging technologies.
  • Proven ability to lead and mentor engineering teams, fostering a collaborative environment.
  • Excellent communication skills to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.

Nice to have

  • Familiarity with compliance and regulatory requirements in the payments industry is a plus.
  • Passion for staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies.

What the JD emphasized

  • inference systems
  • GenAI
  • Agentic AI

Other signals

  • GenAI platform
  • inference systems
  • Agentic AI