Sr Manager, Product Architect

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

Purpose:

The Product Architect owns the successful delivery, adoption and ongoing success of Visa Intelligent Authorisation (VIA) for strategically important clients, ensuring that client needs, product capabilities, implementation activities and delivery outcomes remain aligned throughout the onboarding lifecycle.

Serving as the connective tissue between Product, Sales Engineering, Client Services, Delivery teams and the client, the Product Architect provides continuity from pre-sales discovery through production stabilisation, ensuring requirements are understood, solution designs are viable, delivery remains aligned to client needs, and product evolution is informed by implementation reality.

This role exists because complex onboarding programmes require more than delivery management and more than product ownership. They require an individual who can operate across both worlds, challenge assumptions, navigate ambiguity, influence without authority, and remain accountable for the integrity of the client outcome.

The Product Architect owns neither the product roadmap nor the day-to-day management of the project plan. However, they remain accountable for the successful delivery and adoption of VIA for their assigned clients, ensuring that commercial commitments, solution design, product capabilities and implementation activities remain aligned from initial engagement through production stabilisation.

Key Responsibilities:

Client Ownership:

- Act as the accountable Product lead for assigned strategic clients.
- Own the successful delivery and adoption of VIA for assigned clients.
- Maintain continuity from pre-sales engagement through production stabilisation.
- Maintain accountability for implementation progress, delivery risks, solution integrity and client outcomes throughout the onboarding lifecycle.
- Ensure client requirements, constraints, risks and dependencies are understood and managed throughout delivery.
- Act as a trusted advisor to client stakeholders, helping align business objectives with product capabilities and implementation realities.
- Escalate and drive resolution of issues that threaten delivery timelines, implementation success or client outcomes.

Solution Design & Requirements:

- Lead requirements discovery and solution definition for complex onboarding engagements.
- Challenge assumptions and requirements to ensure scope reflects genuine business needs.
- Develop and maintain end-to-end solution designs covering technical, operational and product considerations.
- Ensure solution designs balance client requirements, operational readiness, scalability and long-term product strategy.
- Ensure that what is sold can be successfully implemented, operated and supported at scale.

Product & Delivery Alignment:

- Act as the primary bridge between client implementation teams and VIA product teams.
- Ensure delivery remains aligned to agreed solution intent and product capabilities.
- Surface product gaps and advocate for enhancements supported by implementation evidence.
- Provide implementation-driven insights that influence product strategy, onboarding frameworks and future platform investments.
- Drive alignment between product decisions, implementation activities and client commitments.

Delivery Governance:

- Provide architecture and product leadership throughout implementation.
- Identify and mitigate technical, operational and onboarding risks.
- Support Pilot exit and production readiness assessments for complex implementations.
- Act as a senior authority within implementation governance forums, managing escalations, resolving ambiguity, and driving clear ownership across stakeholders.
- Cut through organisational noise, competing priorities and conflicting viewpoints to maintain focus on delivery objectives and client outcomes.
- Operate comfortably in situations where requirements, ownership, priorities or delivery paths are not yet fully defined, bringing structure and clarity to complex challenges.
- Influence without formal authority, aligning client, product, operational and delivery teams around a common outcome.
- Be accountable for the overall success of the implementation, regardless of where individual workstreams or delivery responsibilities reside within the organisation.
- Proactively intervene when delivery risks, ownership gaps or organisational barriers threaten successful execution.
- Drive stakeholders toward decisions and actions required to maintain implementation timelines and client commitments.

Problem Resolution & Continuous Improvement:

- Troubleshoot complex integration, onboarding and production issues where required.
- Capture lessons learned and convert implementation experience into reusable standards, guidance and onboarding patterns.
- Contribute to improvements in product readiness, onboarding frameworks and client implementation practices.
- Demonstrate a willingness to step beyond traditional role boundaries when required, contributing wherever necessary to keep implementations on track and achieve successful client outcomes.
- Balance strategic leadership with hands-on execution, moving seamlessly between executive stakeholder discussions and detailed implementation problem solving.
- Be prepared to do whatever is required to achieve the client outcome, whether leading executive escalations, facilitating workshops, removing delivery blockers, resolving implementation issues, or supporting activities outside traditional role boundaries.

Measures of Success:

- Strategic clients successfully onboard and adopt VIA.
- Client commitments are delivered successfully and sustainably.
- Pilot and production milestones are achieved with strong operational readiness.
- Delivery risks are identified early and resolved effectively.
- Solution designs remain aligned to client objectives and product capabilities.
- Product improvements are informed by implementation experience.
- Stakeholders view the Product Architect as the accountable owner of the client outcome and successful delivery of VIA.

Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

- 8+ years of relevant professional experience with a Bachelor's Degree, or 6+ years with an Advanced Degree, or equivalent experience.
- Experience leading complex client onboarding, implementation, transformation, or integration programmes within Payments, Financial Services, FinTech, or related industries.
- Experience translating business requirements into scalable, operationally viable solution designs.
- Strong understanding of payment processing, issuer or acquirer operations, authorization systems, fraud and risk management, or related financial services technologies.
- Experience working directly with clients to define requirements, manage expectations, and drive successful implementation outcomes.
- Experience operating across Product, Technology, Operations, Client Services, Delivery, and Sales Engineering functions.
- Demonstrated ability to identify, manage, and mitigate technical, operational, commercial, and programme risks.
- Experience influencing stakeholders and driving decisions without direct authority in matrixed organizations.
- Experience managing implementation governance, issue resolution, and client escalations.
- Proven ability to operate effectively in ambiguous environments where requirements, ownership, or delivery approaches may not be fully defined.
- Strong communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience collaborating within global, cross-functional teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

- 10+ years of experience in Payments, Financial Services, Banking, FinTech, or related industries.
- Experience leading strategic client implementations involving complex integrations and multiple stakeholder groups.
- Understanding of issuer processing, authorization decisioning, digital payments, fraud systems, and associated operational processes.
- Experience supporting pilot execution, production readiness, and post-production stabilization activities.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a pragmatic delivery mindset.
- Demonstrated accountability for delivering successful client outcomes regardless of organizational boundaries, workstream ownership, or functional responsibilities.

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.