Job Description

Company Description
Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, with over 259 billion payments transactions flowing safely between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive while driven by a common purpose - to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.
Make an impact with a purpose-driven industry leader. Join us today and experience Life at Visa.

For the Manager, Data Science & AI Innovation role in the CEMEA Data Science team, we are seeking a visionary leader and strategic thinker to champion our next-generation AI-driven initiatives within the region. As a Data Science Manager specializing in Generative AI and Agentic AI solutions, you will lead cross-functional teams, drive innovation in autonomous AI systems, and develop cutting-edge AI agents that transform how Visa and our clients approach data-driven decision making. This role is dedicated exclusively to working on key client accounts based in the GCC market while pioneering the future of AI in financial services.
Principal Responsibilities

• Strategic AI Leadership & Innovation

• Lead the design, development, and implementation of GenAI models and autonomous AI agents that revolutionize cards and payments analytics
• Drive the strategic vision for AI and analytics within the organization, aligning with overall business goals and Visa's innovation roadmap
• Identify and champion opportunities for agentic AI automation solutions across client workflows, from procurement to payment processing
• Develop and execute comprehensive AI strategies that leverage multi-agent orchestration frameworks to optimize complex business processes
• Lead implementation of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems and multi-agent workflows for enhanced decision-making capabilities

• Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing team of data scientists, AI engineers, machine learning specialists, and agentic AI developers
• Manage and grow talent within the team, providing guidance on advanced AI methodologies, LLM fine-tuning, and agent-based system development
• Foster a culture of innovation and continuous learning, ensuring team stays current with latest advancements in GenAI, LLMs, and agentic frameworks

• Client Engagement, Solution Architecture & Project Management

• Partner with global teams, business leaders, and technology partners to design and deliver GenAI solutions driving measurable business value.
• Lead consultative C-suite engagements and manage AI projects end-to-end, ensuring on-time, within-scope delivery with strong governance.
• Champion ethical AI practices, model risk management, and compliance with Visa's analytics, privacy, and global standards.

Qualifications
Basic Qualifications

• 10 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor's Degree or at least 2 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 0 years of work experience with a PhD

Preferred Qualifications

• 10 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor's Degree or 4 or more years of relevant experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or up to 3 years of relevant experience with a PhD
• Minimum of 8+ years of expertise in applying Machine Learning and AI solutions to business problems, with at least 4+ years in leadership roles managing data science or AI teams
• Master's or PhD degree in Computer Science, AI/Machine Learning, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related quantitative field
• Good understanding of Payments and the Banking industry, including card verticals such as consumer credit, consumer debit, prepaid, small business, commercial and co-branded product
• Expert knowledge of data, market intelligence, business intelligence, and AI-driven tools and technologies, with demonstrated ability to incorporate new techniques to solve business problems
• Proven ability to lead technical teams in designing and implementing complex AI architectures while translating business requirements into scalable AI solutions
• Hands-on experience with agentic AI frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, or LlamaIndex for building autonomous AI agents and multi-agent orchestration systems

Technical Expertise

• Expertise in vector databases, embedding models, semantic search technologies, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems for intelligent information processing
• Experience in drafting solution architecture frameworks that rely on API's and micro-services
• Expert proficiency in Python and AI-specific libraries (Transformers, LangChain) with additional programming skills for comprehensive AI solution development
• Deep knowledge of transformer architectures, attention mechanisms, reinforcement learning, and modern deep learning techniques for building sophisticated AI agents and GenAI applications
• Advanced understanding of distributed computing environments and big data platforms optimized for AI workloads (Hadoop, Spark, Elasticsearch) with experience in API development and microservices architecture
• Comprehensive knowledge of data governance, privacy-preserving AI techniques, model risk management, and ethical AI practices for secure and responsible AI system deployment

Additional Information
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.

Skills Required