Staff Software Engineer -AI & Middleware Automation

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 We started as an SRE team. Now we're becoming something more — a software engineering organization building agentic AI, automation frameworks, and self-healing platforms that keep Visa's middleware running across 200+ countries. If you write code that matters, think in systems, and want to shape how AI transforms infrastructure operations- let's talk. The Opportunity Visa's Middleware Product Reliability Engineering (PRE) team in Austin is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to help lead our evolution from traditional operations into a modern, AI-driven software engineering organization. This isn't about keeping the lights on — it's about building the intelligent systems that keep them on. You'll design and ship production-grade automation, mentor engineers, drive architectural decisions, and contribute to agentic AI initiatives that are actively transforming how we operate critical infrastructure. Your code will run at global scale, processing billions of transactions daily across 200+ countries. Austin is one of Visa's fastest-growing engineering hubs — and we're building a team that reflects the diversity, creativity, and ambition of this city. We value different perspectives, backgrounds, and ways of thinking. Great engineers come from everywhere. What You'll Do Design & Build at Scale Design and develop middleware reliability solutions with limited guidance — translating business and technical requirements into system designs that scale. Produce extensible, maintainable code used across products — enforcing coding patterns, standards, and security best practices. Lead and participate in design reviews; ensure solutions meet availability, scalability, security, and performance requirements. Identify risks, interdependencies, and tradeoffs; define metrics to assess delivery feasibility. Engineer the Future with Agentic AI Build intelligent automation systems leveraging AI/ML and LLM frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, RAG pipelines). Collaborate with teams across Visa to integrate AI-driven insights into reliability engineering workflows. Identify opportunities for automation that eliminate toil and prevent recurring incidents. Lead Production Excellence Respond to complex incidents with customer or business impact — troubleshoot root causes, deploy fixes, and recommend solutions to prevent recurrence. Participate in on-call rotations; provide incident response guidance to others. Use advanced monitoring and observability to detect issues, identify patterns, and surface systemic risks. Mentor & Multiply Lead junior engineers in understanding requirements, coding standards, and engineering practices. Drive code reviews that enforce quality; provide constructive technical feedback. Teach others about tooling, automation, and reliability practices — share design learnings and investigative findings with the team. You'll Thrive Here If You: Curious and driven — you dig into the "why," take initiative, and follow through without being asked. A systems thinker — you see how pieces connect, anticipate failure modes, and design for resilience. A clear communicator — you explain complex concepts to any audience, technical or not. Collaborative — you lift others up, share credit, and thrive in diverse, cross-functional teams. Adaptable — you grow with the tech (especially AI) and bring others along. Quality-obsessed — you use metrics to drive code quality and operational stability. This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager. Qualifications Basic Qualifications: 5 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelors 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: 6 or more years of work experience with a Bachelors 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 5+ years of professional software engineering experience. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field — or equivalent experience. Proficiency in Python, Java, or Go — you write production-quality, secure, maintainable code. Strong foundations in data structures, algorithms, systems design, and software development lifecycle. Experience with DevOps tools and CI/CD pipelines: Jenkins, Terraform, Ansible, Docker, Kubernetes. Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerization concepts. Working knowledge of monitoring/observability tools (Prometheus, Splunk, Grafana). Strong debugging, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis skills. Experience mentoring engineers and leading code reviews. Curiosity about GenAI and agentic systems — hands-on experience preferred. Middleware experience: Tomcat, Apache, Spring Boot, JBoss, IBM MQ, IBM DataPower, Hazelcast, Kafka, Flink, SQS. AI/ML engineering experience or hands-on work with LLM frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex). Experience integrating AI agents into production systems. Secure coding practices (OWASP principles). Open-source contributions or public engineering portfolio. CORE TECHNOLOGIES: Python | Java | Go | Agentic AI / LLMs | MCP | LangChain / LangGraph | AWS / GCP / Azure | Kubernetes | Terraform / Ansible | Jenkins | Prometheus / Clickhouse / Grafana | Flink | Tomcat / Apache / Spring Boot | IBM MQ | NGINX | NodeJS | Connect Direct | IBM DataPower WHY AUSTIN, WHY VISA, WHY NOW: Global impact, local community — your code runs across 200+ countries; your team grabs breakfast tacos on South Congress. AI-first engineering culture — we're deploying agentic AI in production, not just talking about it. Career growth — clear paths to Senior Staff, Technical Lead, or Engineering Manager. World-class mentorship — learn from engineers with deep experience in distributed systems at global scale. Inclusive by design — we're building a team as diverse as the people Visa serves. ERGs, mentorship programs, and a culture where you belong. Investment in you — tuition assistance, cloud certifications, continuous learning stipends. Flexibility — hybrid work that respects your life outside the office. U.S. Applicants Only The estimated salary range for this position is $131,600.00 to $ 210,300.00 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