Lead Software Engineer (C/C++)

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 (C/C++)
This is an exciting opportunity for you to join Mastercard on the global credit card authorization team. The system facilitates billions of transactions among issuers, acquirers, and service providers. You will have the opportunity to lead projects that enhance this system with each release.
We are looking for engineers who are passionate about software design and development, with a constant focus on quality, performance, security, reliability, and engineering excellence. This role will help drive technical direction and ensure solutions are scalable, resilient, observable, and operationally ready.
Responsibilities
Partner with Product Management to elaborate features, user stories, technical requirements, and test strategies for each initiative.
Create technical designs, provide technical direction, and assign work to developers.
Develop complex stories in C and write unit tests in C++ using Google Test.
Apply secure coding practices throughout the software development lifecycle and help identify and mitigate security risks.
Design and develop high-performing, scalable, and resilient software solutions, with a focus on performance engineering and system efficiency.
Apply strong knowledge of data structures and algorithms to solve complex technical and performance challenges.
Serve as a quality gate by leading code reviews, design reviews, and technical assessments.
Collaborate with other Principals and Leads to define interfaces, dependencies, and interactions between systems.
Provide technical leadership and contribute to software architecture governance by ensuring solutions align with established architectural principles, standards, and long-term technology strategies.
Advise on implementation strategies to support successful, secure, and reliable deployments.
Drive observability and operational readiness by helping define appropriate logging, monitoring, alerting, diagnostics, and production support capabilities.
Implement development process improvements, automation, and CI/CD capabilities to improve engineering efficiency and software quality.
Coach, mentor, and develop junior engineers while helping establish and reinforce engineering best practices.
Deliver department-level and external technical presentations.
All About You
Have you written many lines of production code in C or C++?
Do you enjoy solving complex technical challenges using strong data structures and algorithms fundamentals?
Have you set technical direction for your team and mentored junior engineers?
Do you have experience designing and developing software with a focus on performance engineering, scalability, and efficiency?
Do you have experience applying secure coding practices and identifying potential security risks in software designs and implementations?
Do you have experience with automation and CI/CD?
Have you developed software for Linux operating systems?
Do you have experience designing or contributing to the architecture of complex, distributed systems?
Have you contributed to software architecture governance, including adherence to architectural standards, design principles, and technical guardrails?
Do you have experience building observability and operational readiness into applications through logging, monitoring, alerting, and production support practices?
Have you worked on embedded, real-time, or distributed systems?
Do you have experience and prefer working on an Agile team?
Are you passionate about software quality, security, performance, reliability, and engineering standards?
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