Lead Software Engineer

Our Purpose
Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we're helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.
Title and Summary
Lead Software Engineer
Mastercard's Portfolio Intelligence program is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to play a pivotal role in the development and scaling of the Mastercard Intelligence Center, Mastercard's flagship business intelligence offering, with a primary focus on the data and analytics platform. In this role, you will serve as a hands-on technical lead, partnering closely with multiple backend- and data-focused scrum teams to design, build, and evolve critical platform capabilities. You will provide technical leadership through direct contributions, architectural decision-making, and the establishment of engineering standards, while offering technical mentorship to other engineers. You will also help guide the platform's evolution toward emerging technologies and AI-driven capabilities, fostering a culture of innovation, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
This is a hybrid position based in Arlington, VA, requiring three days per week onsite.
Responsibilities
Platform Architecture & Technical Leadership• Lead system level design for data pipelines, data services, and backend components supporting a large-scale BI platform.• Define and evolve architecture, patterns, and engineering standards (coding, testing, observability, security, performance, and cost efficiency).• Create solution definitions, architecture proposals, and roadmaps, present tradeoffs and recommendations to product leadership and stakeholders.• Ensure solutions align with security, compliance, and audit requirements and Mastercard standards; integrate these into the SDLC and reviews.• Conduct/drive design reviews, architecture reviews, and security reviews; ensure readiness and alignment before build.
Hands On Development & Delivery • Design and build backend services and ETL/ELT data pipelines (Java preferred; C# or Python acceptable).• Orchestrate workflows with Airflow; implement data transformations at scale (e.g., Databricks / Spark); optimize data models and warehouse usage (Snowflake).• Implement CI/CD pipelines with Jenkins; maintain code quality via code reviews, unit/integration/performance testing, and automation.• Instrument services for observability (e.g., Splunk dashboards/alerts); set and monitor SLOs and error budgets; drive incident response and root cause analysis.• Champion cost, performance, and reliability optimization across AWS services and data platforms.
Execution, Stakeholder Management & Team Leadership• Lead delivery across 2+ scrum teams, partnering with product, data, and platform leads to plan and deliver outcomes on time and to SLA.• Collaborate with Project/Program Managers to scope work, estimate effort/cost, manage risks and dependencies, and track metrics.• Provide technical mentorship and coaching; elevate team capabilities via brown bag sessions, pairing, and review culture.• Coordinate with global/offshore contributors; uphold documentation standards and traceability throughout the SDLC.• Support RFI/RFP evaluations, vendor/technology selection, and proofs of concept for emerging technologies, including AI driven use cases.
Qualifications• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.• Experience as a senior or lead software engineer, including:
o Strong backend development skills (Java preferred; C# or Python also acceptable).
o Designing and operating large scale data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, and data warehousing solutions.
o Hands on experience with Databricks (Spark), Airflow, Snowflake, and core AWS services.
o Building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with Jenkins and implementing production observability using Splunk (dashboards, alerts, log analysis).• Proven ability to deliver secure, high quality, and reliable systems within SLA, including code reviews, test automation, and performance tuning.• Demonstrated capability to lead and mentor engineers and influence architecture across multiple teams.• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and documentation skills-able to clearly articulate trade offs, value, and ROI to both technical and non technical audiences.• Exposure to data governance, data quality, and metadata management practices for analytics platforms.• Experience building or supporting AI/ML capabilities on top of data platforms (e.g., feature pipelines, inference orchestration, model observability).• Knowledge of microservices, API design, and distributed systems patterns (idempotency, backpressure, retries, circuit breaking).• Familiarity with performance and cost optimization in Snowflake (e.g., warehouse sizing, caching) and AWS (e.g., storage and compute cost controls)
This role is not eligible for Mastercard's work authorization sponsorship. As such, candidates must be eligible to work in the United States, now as well as in the future, without employer sponsorship.
#LI-TE1
Mastercard is a merit-based, inclusive, equal opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabled or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We hire the most qualified candidate for the role. In the US or Canada, if you require accommodations or assistance to complete the online application process or during the recruitment process, please contact [email protected] and identify the type of accommodation or assistance you are requesting. Do not include any medical or health information in this email. The Reasonable Accommodations team will respond to your email promptly.
Corporate Security Responsibility
All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard's security policies and practices;
• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;
• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and
• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard's guidelines.

In line with Mastercard's total compensation philosophy and assuming that the job will be performed in the US, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive base salary and may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role. The base salary offered may vary depending on multiple factors, including but not limited to location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Mastercard benefits for full time (and certain part time) employees generally include: insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance); flexible spending account and health savings account; paid leaves (including 16 weeks of new parent leave and up to 20 days of bereavement leave); 80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time, 25 days of vacation time and 5 personal days, pro-rated based on date of hire; 10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays; 401k with a best-in-class company match; deferred compensation for eligible roles; fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities; eligibility for tuition reimbursement; and many more. Mastercard benefits for interns generally include: 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time; jury duty leave; and on-site fitness facilities in some locations.
Pay Ranges
Arlington, Virginia: $161,000 - $266,000 USD
O'Fallon, Missouri: $140,000 - $231,000 USD