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
Overview
Join a team focused on transforming how Mastercard's payment systems are built, scaled, and operated. As a Lead Software Development Engineer, you will drive the architecture, design, and delivery of modern payment platforms, helping shape the technical direction of mission-critical systems that support Mastercard's evolving technology strategy.
In this role, you will provide technical leadership across engineering teams, champion cloud-native and event-driven architectures, and guide the adoption of modern engineering practices. You will partner closely with engineers and stakeholders to build scalable, resilient, and secure software solutions while advancing platform modernization, automation, and AI-enabled engineering capabilities. This role is ideal for a hands-on technical leader who enjoys solving complex distributed systems challenges, mentoring engineers, and influencing technology decisions at scale.
What You Will Do
Software Architecture & Engineering Leadership
- Lead software design and architecture decisions across multiple teams and
platforms.
- Define engineering standards for software development, testing, security,
operability, and deployment.
- Conduct architecture reviews and provide technical governance across
projects.
- Mentor engineers and cultivate a culture of engineering excellence.
Scalable Distributed Systems
- Architect highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems capable of
processing millions of transactions daily.
- Drive performance engineering initiatives including load testing, capacity
planning, scalability analysis, and production optimization.
- Design solutions supporting low latency, high throughput, resiliency, and
operational excellence.
Event-Driven Architecture
- Design and implement large-scale event-driven architectures utilizing Kafka
and modern messaging patterns.
- Drive adoption of asynchronous processing and distributed system design
best practices.
Cloud Native Engineering
- Lead development and deployment using PCF, Kubernetes, Docker, and CI/CD
platforms.
- Champion platform engineering and infrastructure automation practices.
Security, Reliability & Operations
- Establish secure coding standards and application security best practices.
- Drive operational readiness, observability, monitoring, and supportability
strategies.
- Lead complex troubleshooting efforts, root cause analysis, and remediation
activities.
- Establish standards for unit, functional, and integration testing.
Agentic AI Engineering
- Lead adoption of AI-assisted development, AI agents, MCP-based integrations,
autonomous workflows, and modern engineering productivity tools.
- Evaluate and implement emerging AI engineering capabilities while ensuring
governance and responsible AI practices.
All About You
- 10+ years of software engineering experience.
- 3+ years leading large-scale distributed system initiatives.
- Expert-level Java, Spring Boot, REST APIs, microservices architecture, and
distributed systems expertise.
- Strong software architecture and software design leadership experience.
- Deep expertise in performance engineering and reliability engineering.
- Extensive experience implementing secure coding standards and software
quality practices.
- Experience mentoring engineers and leading technical decision-making.
- Deep understanding of observability, monitoring, operability, and production
support.
- Demonstrated experience with AI-assisted software development, AI agents,
MCP, RAG, and agentic workflows.
- Strong communication, stakeholder management, and technical leadership
skills.
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
O'Fallon, Missouri: $140,000 - $231,000 USD