Staff Research Scientist, Intern - PhD Summer 2026

Company Description

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, with over 259 billion payments transactions flowing safely between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive while driven by a common purpose – to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

Make an impact with a purpose-driven industry leader. Join us today and experience Life at Visa.

Job Description

Visa’s Internship Program provides an immersive, 12-week journey where you’ll work on impactful projects that drive Visa’s mission forward. As a Visa intern, you’ll build valuable connections across the organization, sharpen your communication and business acumen, and gain hands-on experience in a dynamic, global environment. 

Throughout the program, you’ll have exclusive access to interactive workshops and learning sessions designed to deepen your expertise, expand your industry knowledge, and elevate your professional skillset. You won’t just be learning, you’ll be contributing, collaborating, and innovating every step of the way. In addition to professional development, you’ll enjoy a variety of intern social events that foster community, connection, and fun throughout the summer 

The experience culminates in an exciting final presentation, where you’ll showcase your project achievements, share key insights, and present your recommendations to Visa’s leaders and stakeholders. This is your chance to demonstrate your business impact, highlight your personal growth, and align your work with Visa’s vision for the future. 

Visa Research is an organization that focuses exclusively on the scientific foundations of existing, emerging and future commerce-related technologies. With the establishment of a formal research organization and the associated long-term commitment to technology research, Visa joins the ranks of a small number of industry leaders with both the insight and ability to substantially influence and systemically impact the future.

The Research Intern will work with a team to conduct world-class research on data analytics and contribute to the long-term research agenda in large-scale data analytics and machine learning, as well as deliver innovative technologies and insights to Visa's strategic products and business. This role represents an exciting opportunity to make key contributions to Visa's strategic vision as a world-leading data-driven company. The successful candidate must have a strong academic track record and demonstrate excellent software engineering skills. The successful candidate will be a self-starter comfortable with ambiguity, with strong attention to detail, and excellent collaboration skills.

This role represents an exciting opportunity to make key contributions to Visa's strategic vision as the world-leading digital payments company. The successful candidate must have an outstanding academic track record in fundamental and applied research with participation in developing innovations. The candidate will be a self-starter comfortable with ambiguity, with strong attention to detail, and excellent collaboration skills.

Job duties and projects could include:

• Research and develop methods to reduce hallucinations and improve factual reliability in AI agents.
• Design access control mechanisms and policy enforcement for secure AI agent interactions.
• Investigate and implement attack mitigation strategies, including Prompt injection defenses and Jailbreak prevention methods
• Explore multi-agent architectures for secure, coordinated, and efficient collaboration between AI agents.
• Build and evaluate efficiency improvements such as model compression, quantization, and optimized LLM fine-tuning.
• Develop benchmarking frameworks for safety, robustness, and performance evaluation.
• Contribute to top-tier research publications

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• Students pursuing a Ph.D. with a graduation date in December 2026 or later
• Strong communications skills, specifically, the absence of repeated grammatical or typographical errors, clear and concise written and spoken communications that demonstrate professional judgment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong track record in research and impact in the research community in highly reputed journals and conferences through multiple publications, patents and/or presentations at conferences.
• Proven research experience in AI safety, security, or alignment
• Proficiency with object oriented programming languages, such as Python, C++, Java, and Lua.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills and an eagerness to collaborate with members of your team as well as other Visa teams
• Demonstrated ability to think outside the box and innovate
• Experience with multi-agent systems and frameworks 
• The ability to take on challenges and address problems head-on

Additional Information

U.S. APPLICANTS ONLY: The estimated hourly range for a new hire into this position is $54/hr to $62/hr 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.

Work Hours: Varies upon the needs of the department.

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

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.