Lead Cybersecurity Engineer, Cloud

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.

Visa’s Cyber Security team is seeking a Cloud Security Architecture with an automation-first mindset to design, build, and operate large‑scale, cloud‑native and AI‑driven security platforms that protect Visa’s global brand, networks, products, and data. This role combines hands‑on engineering, automation‑first security design, and technical leadership in a highly dynamic, high‑impact environment.

The ideal candidate is a strong cloud security engineer and problem solver with deep experience in Python‑based services, cloud security engineering, API‑driven architectures, and automation, and who is excited to apply GenAI and autonomous agent technologies to modern security challenges.

This role plays a critical part in reducing time-to-onboard-workload, time‑to‑detect (TTD) and time‑to‑remediate (TTR) by driving intelligent automation, threat intelligence enrichment, and policy‑as‑code across Visa’s multi‑cloud ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

Security Engineering & Platform Development

• Design, develop, and operate large‑scale cyber security platforms that deliver detection, prevention, and response capabilities across cloud and hybrid environments.
• Build cloud‑native, API‑first security services using Python and modern web service frameworks.
• Develop and expand security integration frameworks to interconnect SIEM, CSPM, CNAPP, IAM, network security, and threat intelligence platforms.
• Drive security automation to minimize manual intervention and accelerate incident response workflows.

GenAI & Agentic Security Capabilities

• Design and implement GenAI‑powered security workflows, including:
  • Autonomous agents for cloud misconfiguration analysis, policy validation, and remediation recommendations
  • AI‑assisted threat triage, alert summarization, and root‑cause analysis
  • Intelligent enrichment of security signals using applied threat intelligence
• Build and operate agentic systems that can reason across telemetry, policies, and infrastructure state to propose or execute remediation actions safely.
• Evaluate and adopt emerging LLM, agent orchestration, and AI governance frameworks for enterprise‑grade security use cases.
• Ensure secure, compliant, and auditable use of GenAI, including data handling, prompt safety, access controls, and model risk considerations.

Cloud Security & Automation

• Engineer and enforce cloud security controls across Azure (or AWS) in large‑scale enterprise environments.
• Implement Infrastructure‑as‑Code (IaC) and automation frameworks to provision and manage security controls using tools such as Terraform.
• Drive Policy‑as‑Code and Guardrails, authoring and maintaining policies using:
• Integrate GitOps‑based promotion pipelines (dev → test → prod) with secure remote state management and drift detection.

Threat Detection, Response & Posture Management

• Reduce time‑to‑detect and time‑to‑remediate by automating:
  • Threat intelligence ingestion and correlation
  • Sensor enrichment and contextual risk scoring
• Design and operate cloud security posture management (CSPM/CNAPP) capabilities using platforms such as Wiz, Prisma Cloud, or Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
• Work across multiple security domains including:
  • Cloud firewalls and security groups, DDoS protection, Network proxies, Cloud‑native SIEM platforms (e.g., ADX, Sumo Logic)

Architecture, Innovation & Leadership

• Lead technical design discussions and translate business requirements into secure, scalable architectures.
• Conduct proof‑of‑concepts (POCs) for new technologies, tools, and architectures, evaluate feasibility and drive production adoption.
• Stay current with emerging cloud, security, and AI technologies, proactively assessing their applicability within Visa.
• Act as a technical leader and mentor, raising the engineering and security maturity of the team.
• Contribute to project planning, including cost estimation, timelines, and risk assessment for new security initiatives.

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager. 

Basic Qualifications:

10+ years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 7 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 4 years of work experience with a PhD, OR 13+ years of relevant work experience.

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

Cloud & Security Expertise

Strong domain expertise in cloud security engineering within multi‑cloud enterprise environments (AWS, Azure).

Expert‑level certification in at least one major cloud platform, Azure preferred.

Hands‑on experience migrating applications to the cloud and implementing cloud‑native security controls at scale.

Proven ability to design and implement new security controls based on risk assessments, gaps, and regulatory requirements.

GenAI, Automation & Engineering

Demonstrated experience building GenAI solutions and autonomous agents for cloud security engineering or security operations.

Strong programming skills in Python (preferred) or Go, with experience in building production‑grade services.

Expertise in IaC, automation, and GitOps workflows, including secure state management and drift detection.

Experience with policy‑as‑code and enterprise guardrail enforcement.

Operational & Leadership Skills

Ability to independently drive POCs, own implementations end‑to‑end, and transition solutions into production.

Experience assisting with cost modeling, timelines, and delivery planning for security initiatives.

Strong understanding of threat management, vulnerability management, and cloud security posture management.

Excellent communication, collaboration, and technical leadership skills, with the ability to influence across teams

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.

U.S. APPLICANTS ONLY: The estimated salary range for this position is 180,000.00 to 288,000.00 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.