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About This Role
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.
Visa will accept applications for this role until at least 06\-30\-2026Job Description
The Cyber Analytics and AI Innovation team is revolutionizing the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence by developing cutting\-edge capabilities and tools that empower employees at Visa to develop secure applications with higher productivity. We are a dynamic and innovative team, driven by a passion for AI/ML technology and a commitment to delivering exceptional platforms and services to our business partners at Visa.
Position can sit in either Foster City, CA or Ashburn, VA
We are at the forefront of innovation, developing a suite of cutting\-edge, Secure Enterprise AI Applications that are set to redefine the landscape of Gen AI. Our projects include:
- Comprehensive Security Guardrails: Implementing state\-of\-the\-art security measures and protocols to ensure the utmost protection of sensitive data and maintain compliance with global financial regulations. Scalable Enterprise AI Products: Designing and deploying AI\-powered solutions that can be seamlessly integrated into various business units, driving efficiency and innovation across the organization.
- Join us in shaping the future of Generative AI at Visa and making a significant impact on the enterprise.
- You will have the opportunity to work across various roles from development to architecture and collaborate closely with a cross\-functional team of architects, engineers, data scientists, and product managers to design, implement, and deliver solutions that are intuitive, user\-centric, and accessible to everyone at Visa.
This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.
Qualifications
Basic Qualifications
- 2\+ years of relevant work experience and a Bachelors degree OR 5\+ years of relevant work experience. Masters graduates must have 2\+ years of relevant work experience to qualify.
Preferred Qualifications
- 3 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or more than 2 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD).
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field.
- Minimum of 3\+ years of experience in developing highly available and scalable RESTful services using Python. Experience with Java, Go, Rust or any other object\-oriented programming language is a plus.
- 2\+ years of experience building and pushing code into production.
- 1\+ years of hands\-on experience with GenAI technologies — including LLMs, prompt engineering, embeddings, fine\-tuning, and AI agents or agentic pipelines.
- Strong software engineering background with experience in Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX..
- Hands\-on experience with LLMs (e.g., GPT, Claude, Mistral), vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Pinecone), and orchestration tools (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, Autogen).
- Hands\-on experience with design and development tools like IntelliJ, VSCode, Postman, and Jupyter.
- Expertise in evaluating various large language models (LLMs), assessing their performance, and comparing their capabilities to identify suitable models based on business requirements.
- Proven experience in machine learning model fine\-tuning and optimization.
- Hands\-on experience with AI model APIs and AI agent frameworks.
- Familiarity with the Nvidia ecosystem, including CUDA, and other relevant tools.
- Proficiency in modern backend architectures, including cloud\-native development (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and distributed systems.
- Proficiency in working with both RDBMS (preferably MySQL) and NoSQL databases (preferably Cassandra).
- Ability to multi\-task in a dynamic and fast paced environment.
- Solid understanding of software development best practices and principles.
- Experience with Agile methodologies and practices.
- Strong analytical and problem\-solving skills with attention to detail.
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, to effectively collaborate with cross\-functional teams.
U.S. Applicants Only
The estimated salary range for this position is $123,000 to $190,900 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 protect 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.
Salary Context
This $123K-$190K range is below the median for AI Agent Developer roles in our dataset (median: $190K across 44 roles with salary data).
View full AI Agent Developer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI Agent Developers build autonomous systems that can reason, plan, and take actions. They design multi-step workflows, tool-use frameworks, and orchestration layers that let LLMs interact with external systems. This is the frontier of applied AI engineering.
Agent development is where the most interesting (and hardest) problems in applied AI live right now. Making an LLM answer a question is straightforward. Making it reliably execute a 15-step workflow that involves calling APIs, reading databases, making decisions, and recovering from errors is an unsolved problem. You're building systems that have to work despite the fact that the underlying model is non-deterministic.
Across the 4,133 AI roles we're tracking, AI Agent Developer positions make up 1% of the market. At Visa, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
AI Agent Developer is one of the newest and fastest-growing AI role categories. The market is early but accelerating as companies move beyond simple chatbots toward AI systems that can take real actions. Compensation is high because the skill set is rare and the business impact is potentially enormous.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: designing the action space and tool definitions for a new agent use case, debugging why the agent chose the wrong action sequence on a specific input, building evaluation frameworks that test agent reliability across hundreds of scenarios, optimizing the prompt chain for cost and latency, and implementing safety guardrails to prevent the agent from taking destructive actions. The work is equal parts engineering and empirical science.
AI Agent Developer is one of the newest and fastest-growing AI role categories. The market is early but accelerating as companies move beyond simple chatbots toward AI systems that can take real actions. Compensation is high because the skill set is rare and the business impact is potentially enormous.
Skills Required
Deep experience with LLM APIs and agent frameworks (LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen). Strong understanding of prompt engineering, function calling, and error handling for non-deterministic systems. Python is standard. Experience with orchestration patterns, state management, and workflow engines adds significant value.
The best agent developers think like systems engineers. They design for failure modes, build observability into every step, and understand that agent reliability is the product. Expertise in evaluation methodology for non-deterministic systems is the differentiator. Can you measure whether your agent works 'well enough'? Can you find the edge cases where it breaks?
Look for roles that describe specific agent use cases, mention evaluation methodology, and talk about production deployment. Early-stage companies exploring agents can be exciting, but be prepared for ambiguity. The most valuable roles are at companies that have already shipped a v1 and need to make it reliable.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI Agent Developer roles pay a median of $241,950 based on 112 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($156K) sits 35% below the category median. Disclosed range: $123K to $190K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,700. Top-quartile compensation starts at $254,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($274,200) and AI Engineering Manager ($268,700). By seniority level: Entry: $97,760; Mid: $165,778; Senior: $227,400; Director: $250,000; VP: $250,000.
Visa AI Hiring
Visa has 12 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across Data Scientist, AI/ML Engineer, AI Agent Developer, AI Product Manager. Positions span Austin, TX, US, Foster City, CA, US, Atlanta, GA, US. Compensation range: $163K - $362K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 14% (583 positions) offer remote work, while 3,532 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,760 roles, $211,000 median); San Francisco (2,258 roles, $253,000 median); Los Angeles (1,841 roles, $195,000 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI Agent Developer roles include Software Engineer, LLM Engineer, Prompt Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward AI Architect, Principal Engineer, Head of AI Engineering.
Build agents. That's the portfolio. Take an open-source agent framework, build something that completes a non-trivial multi-step task, evaluate it rigorously, and document what you learned about reliability, cost, and failure modes. The field is new enough that practical experience counts for more than credentials.
What to Expect in Interviews
Interviews focus on systems thinking and reliability engineering. Expect questions about agent architecture: how you'd design a multi-step workflow with error recovery, how you'd evaluate agent performance, and how you'd prevent agents from taking destructive actions. Coding exercises often involve building a simple agent with tool use and evaluating its behavior across different scenarios. Discussion of safety and guardrails is increasingly common.
When evaluating opportunities: Look for roles that describe specific agent use cases, mention evaluation methodology, and talk about production deployment. Early-stage companies exploring agents can be exciting, but be prepared for ambiguity. The most valuable roles are at companies that have already shipped a v1 and need to make it reliable.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 4,133 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 106 entry-level, 1,901 mid-level, 1,663 senior, and 463 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 14% of the market (583 positions). The remaining 3,532 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $200,700. Top-quartile compensation starts at $254,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($274,200 median, 57 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($268,700 median, 42 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 442 roles).
AI Agent Developer is one of the newest and fastest-growing AI role categories. The market is early but accelerating as companies move beyond simple chatbots toward AI systems that can take real actions. Compensation is high because the skill set is rare and the business impact is potentially enormous.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 4,133 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,865), Data Scientist (339), AI Software Engineer (313). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (106) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,901) and senior (1,663) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 463 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 14% of all AI roles (583 positions), with 3,532 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $200,700. Top-quartile roles start at $254,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $274,200 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,128 postings), Aws (1,324 postings), Azure (1,003 postings), Rag (916 postings), Gcp (817 postings), Pytorch (655 postings), Prompt Engineering (639 postings), Claude (571 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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