Director, Platform Engineering

Role details

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 Visa's Data Trust & Platform Engineering (DTPE) organization delivers the foundational platforms that power Visa's enterprise data, analytics, AI, and cloud ecosystem. DTPE is responsible for advancing secure, scalable, governed, and resilient data platform capabilities spanning hybrid-cloud infrastructure, compute, storage, streaming, orchestration, data governance, privacy, quality, and platform engineering services. We are seeking a seasoned Director, Platform Engineering to lead a strategically important Platform Engineering organization based in Foster City. This leader will own execution, operational excellence, customer engagement, and technology strategy for a portfolio of mission-critical platform services that enable Visa's modern data and AI ecosystem. As the senior DTPE engineering leader in Foster City, this role will act as the primary interface between platform engineering teams, data product organizations, architecture leaders, and executive stakeholders. The Director will drive platform modernization, hybrid-cloud adoption, engineering excellence, reliability, and operational maturity while building and leading high-performing engineering teams. This position requires a strong blend of technical leadership, organizational influence, business acumen, customer obsession, and operational rigor. Key Responsibilities: Strategic Leadership Define and execute the strategic roadmap for Platform Engineering aligned with Visa's enterprise data, AI, and hybrid-cloud transformation objectives. Partner with senior leadership to shape long-term investment priorities, technology direction, and modernization initiatives. Lead organizational planning, workforce strategy, succession planning, and engineering capability development. Drive adoption of engineering best practices, automation, AI-assisted development, and platform self-service models. Platform & Technology Leadership Provide leadership for large-scale platform services supporting data, analytics, AI, and mission-critical enterprise workloads. Drive modernization of platform architecture, cloud-native adoption, infrastructure automation, developer productivity, and platform reliability. Establish engineering standards for scalability, resilience, observability, security, compliance, and cost efficiency. Partner with architects and distinguished engineers to define technology roadmaps and future-state platform architectures. Business & Stakeholder Engagement Serve as the Foster City DTPE leader and primary point of engagement for US-based customers, partners, and engineering organizations. Build strong partnerships across Data Platform, Product, Infrastructure, Security, Operations, and Architecture organizations. Influence senior executives and stakeholders to align investments, priorities, and execution plans. Represent DTPE in executive reviews, planning cycles, operational governance forums, and strategic transformation initiatives. Engineering Delivery & Operational Excellence Own delivery outcomes, service reliability, production readiness, and operational health for Platform Engineering services. Drive measurable improvements in availability, performance, efficiency, developer experience, and platform adoption. Lead incident management governance, operational reviews, risk management, and remediation programs. Establish metrics-driven management practices centered on business outcomes, engineering productivity, and customer satisfaction. Organizational Leadership Lead and develop managers and senior engineering leaders. Build a high-performing culture centered on accountability, innovation, inclusion, and technical excellence. Drive talent acquisition, retention, leadership development, and organizational effectiveness. Foster collaboration across geographically distributed teams spanning the US and India. Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager. Qualifications Basic Qualifications: 10 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 8 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters/ MBA/JD/MD) or at least 3 years of work experience with a PhD Preferred Qualifications: 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 8-10 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 6+ years of work experience with a PhD 12+ years of software engineering, infrastructure engineering, platform engineering, or data platform experience. 5+ years of leadership experience managing managers and engineering teams. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. Proven experience leading large-scale platform, infrastructure, cloud, or enterprise data engineering organizations. Strong background in distributed systems, cloud-native technologies, platform services, and operational excellence. Demonstrated success driving organizational transformation and technology modernization initiatives. Experience leading hybrid-cloud platform strategies and enterprise-scale modernization programs. Deep understanding of data platforms, AI infrastructure, analytics platforms, governance, and platform engineering disciplines. Experience building customer-centric platform organizations with strong service-oriented operating models. Knowledge of Kubernetes, distributed compute, storage systems, data infrastructur