Data Science Director

  • Full-time
  • Job Family Group: Product Development

Company Description

Visa is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating more than 215 billion payments transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across 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.

When you join Visa, you join a culture of purpose and belonging – where your growth is priority, your identity is embraced, and the work you do matters. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere. Your work will have a direct impact on billions of people around the world – helping unlock financial access to enable the future of money movement.

Join Visa: A Network Working for Everyone.

Job Description

To ensure that Visa’s payment technology is truly available to everyone, everywhere requires the success of our key bank or merchant partners and internal business units. The Global Data Science group supports these partners by using our outstandingly rich data set that spans more than 3 billion cards globally and collects more than 100 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. We work in complementary teams comprising members from Data Science and various groups at Visa. To support our rapidly growing group we are looking for Data Scientists who are equally passionate about the opportunity to use Visa’s rich data to seek meaningful business problems. You will join one of the Data Science focus areas (e.g., banks, merchants & retailers, digital products, marketing) with an opportunity for rotation within Data Science to gain broad exposure to Visa’s business. 

Essential Functions 

  • Lead a team of analysts within Global Data Science, including project oversight, mentor, and professional development 

  • Work with internal and external clients to understand their strategic business questions and lead project prioritization and design to answer those questions using Visa’s data 

  • Lead other tasks on R&D, data governance, system infrastructure, analytics tool evaluation, and other cross team functions, on an as-needed basis 

  • Ability to encourage the highest level of quality and thought leadership in reports & data analysis 

  • Guide team in the development of meaningful solutions and creation of work you're doing that optimally communicate the findings and recommendations 

  • Develop Visa’s unique global data assets in order to support other Data Science teams in answering critical questions for business teams. 

  • Measure effectiveness of utilization of data assets and for advising resources towards high potential data sources, knowledge and technology assets. 

  • Use big data and cutting-edge data mining techniques, provide guidance on analytic techniques and business applications to unlock the value of our data set 

  • Lead development of assets supporting scalable analytic approaches capable of being used by data scientists globally 

  • Make recommendations and build use cases on new sources of value by addressing the biggest gaps in our data sources in relation to revenue potential 

  • Voice support for new analytic approaches for processing big data through internal training, documentation and by leading technical sharing sessions 

  • Utilize Hadoop, and related query engines, such as Hive and Impala, to perform sophisticated data mining 

  • Research industry metrics and business context and bring this context to bear in analyses 

  • Find opportunities to create and automate repeatable analyses or build self-service tools for business users 

  • Direct the execution of medium to large analytic projects based on business requirements and desired business outcomes. 

  • Define detailed analytic scope and methodology, and create architecture plans for data assets. 

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications 

  • 10 years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 8 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Master’s, MBA, JD, MD) or at least 3 years of work experience with a PhD degree 

Preferred Qualifications 

  • 12-15 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 

  • Minimum of 7+ years of analytical experience in applying solutions to business problems in relevant fields such as analytics, business consulting, or other related functions 

  • Post Graduate degree in quantitative/relevant field such as Statistics, Operational Research, Computer Science, Economics, Business Administration, etc. 

  • Experienced knowledge of databases and engineering concepts with hands on experience with one or more data analytics/programming tools such as SAS/Hive/R/SQL/Python 

  • Knowledge of big data engineering stack including Hadoop, Spark, Kafka and other related components 

  • Familiarity or experience with data mining and statistical modeling (e.g., regression modeling, clustering techniques, decision trees, etc.) is strongly preferred 

  • Prior experience with Visa or clients of Visa handling analytic applications of payment data is a plus 

  • Previous experience with a consulting firm delivery consulting services to financial services clients is a plus 

  • Proven experience in planning, organizing, and leading multiple multi-functional projects with diverse cross-functional partners 

  • Good discernment to orient data analysis to business needs of clients 

  • Eloquent communicator able to translate data and technical concepts for a business audience 

  • Demonstrated ability to innovate solutions that tackle business problems 

  • Strong business acumen with proven ability to solve business problems through industry-leading engineering methodologies.  

  • Experience in payment, retail banking, or retail merchant industries is preferred 

  • Understanding of Cards/Payments and Banking business model would be a plus 

  • Team oriented, collaborative, respectful, and flexible style, with the ability to tailor results to varied audiences 

  • Detailed orientation is expected to ensure the highest level of quality in planning and roadmap development for deliverables 

  • Proven track record in translating analytics output to significant recommendations, and delivery 

  • Experience in communicating ideas and analysis to a technical audience 

  • Exhibit intellectual curiosity and strive to continually learn 

Additional Information

Visa has adopted a COVID-19 vaccination policy to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and visitors. As a condition of employment, all employees based in the U.S. are required to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, unless a reasonable accommodation is approved or as otherwise required by law.

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.

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