Chief Data Architect (Foster City)

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

The Chief Data Architect – Finance Technology is responsible for defining and leading the enterprise data architecture strategy across the Finance Technology landscape. This role ensures scalable, secure, and governed data solutions that support financial reporting, regulatory reporting, planning, analytics, and decision‑making.

This leader also plays a key role in building and evolving the Finance Data Platform (FDP)—a cloud‑enabled, enterprise data foundation designed to serve as the single source of truth for Finance data, enabling consistent, trusted, and self‑service access across domains.

The role requires close partnership with Finance, Technology, and Data teams to deliver a unified, modern data ecosystem across platforms such as ERP, EPM, data platforms, and analytics solutions.

Strategic Leadership & Vision

• Define and drive the multi‑year Finance data architecture roadmap aligned with business and enterprise data strategy
• Serve as a trusted advisor to Finance and Technology leadership on data strategy, architecture, and platform investments
• Lead the vision for a modern, cloud‑based Finance data ecosystem spanning transactional, analytical, and reporting systems
• Position the Finance Data Platform as a central, governed data foundation for Finance use cases

Enterprise Architecture & Governance

• Establish and govern enterprise‑wide data architecture standards, principles, and best practices
• Define canonical data models and standardized definitions across Finance domains
• Ensure consistency, scalability, security, and compliance across all Finance data solutions
• Partner with enterprise architecture and governance teams to align with broader data strategies

Platform & Integration Leadership

• Define and oversee the architecture for the Finance Data Platform, including ingestion, transformation, and consumption layers
• Own data integration strategy across Finance systems such as ERP, billing platforms, EPM, and analytics tools
• Drive adoption of scalable integration patterns including batch, streaming, APIs, and data pipelines
• Ensure alignment and reconciliation between operational systems and analytical reporting platforms

Data, Risk & Control Accountability

• Ensure Finance data solutions meet audit, regulatory, security, and compliance requirements (including SOX)
• Embed strong data governance practices including data quality, lineage, metadata, and stewardship
• Partner with Risk, Controls, and Audit teams to enable transparent and auditable data flows

Modernization & Cloud Enablement

• Lead modernization of legacy Finance data environments to cloud‑native architectures
• Define and implement scalable data platform patterns (lakehouse, data warehouse, hybrid models)
• Enable high‑performance data processing for financial close, reconciliation, and reporting cycles
• Simplify and rationalize existing data platforms and pipelines

Analytics & AI Enablement

• Enable self‑service analytics and reporting through well‑governed, high‑quality data
• Design data architectures that support advanced analytics, AI/ML, and future data use cases
• Ensure Finance data is structured and accessible for innovation and emerging capabilities

Program Leadership & Delivery

• Provide architectural leadership across major Finance Technology initiatives and programs
• Collaborate with engineering teams and partners to ensure high‑quality design and delivery
• Act as escalation point for critical data and architecture decisions

Leadership & Collaboration

• Mentor and guide data architects, engineers, and technical leaders
• Collaborate with business and technology stakeholders across Finance, Risk, Treasury, and Accounting
• Build strong relationships with key technology partners and vendors

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• 12+ years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 9 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g., Masters, MBA, JD, MD); or 6 years of work experience with a PhD; OR 15+ years of relevant work experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• 15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g., Masters, MBA, JD, or MD); PhD with 9+ years of experience.
• Proven track record of delivering large‑scale data platform or transformation initiatives
• Strong experience working with senior business and technology stakeholders
• Experience with enterprise data modeling (conceptual, logical, physical)
• Familiarity with modeling approaches such as dimensional modeling or data vault
• Experience with cloud data platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Exposure to technologies such as Databricks, Snowflake, or similar
• Understanding of data warehousing, lakehouse, and distributed data architectures
• Experience with data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, and orchestration tools
• Knowledge of data integration patterns including APIs and data streaming
• Familiarity with data quality, lineage, and metadata management concepts
• Exposure to regulatory, audit, and compliance requirements in Finance
• Experience supporting BI and analytics tools (Tableau, Power BI, EPM platforms)
• Understanding of how data supports reporting, forecasting, and analytics

U.S. Applicants Only

The estimated salary range for this position is $217,600.00 to $348,300.00 USD per year, which may include potential sales incentive payments (if applicable). Salary may vary depending on job‑related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for bonus and equity. Visa has a comprehensive benefits package for which this position may be eligible that includes Medical, Dental, Vision, 401(k), FSA/HSA, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, and Wellness Program.

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 the EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.