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:
The Mastercard Developer Workbench, part of the MSBX (Mastercard Software Builder Experience) division, is evolving from a cost-allocation construct into a unified, developer-centric platform. With over 11,500 software engineers across the organization, Mastercard is investing in a dedicated product team to deliver an integrated, end-to-end developer experience.
The Developer Workbench brings together five core MSBX products - BuildersHub, DevFlow, TestFlow, DevInsights, and Cloud DevEx - alongside cross-cutting tools including GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Docker Desktop. This is a rare opportunity to shape the future of how engineers at one of the world's leading technology companies build, test, and ship software.
About the Role:
- Serve as a technical lead for the Developer Workbench platform, driving engineering delivery and setting quality standards across the
team.
- Help define and evolve the technical direction of the Developer Workbench, contributing meaningfully to roadmap decisions and architecture choices.
- Lead the integration and enablement of software engineering tools across the development lifecycle, ensuring reliability, scalability, and strong developer usability.
- Own key areas of the "birthright and optional tooling" catalogue - driving version lifecycle decisions, conducting tool evaluations, and coordinating deprecation of redundant solutions.
- Partner with product owners and platform teams to translate engineering priorities into well-scoped, executable technical plans.
- Lead technical delivery of developer enablement capabilities - onboarding flows, self-service tooling, feedback integrations - and drive adoption across 11,500+ engineers.
- Architect and deliver pre-provisioned onboarding environments that enable new hires to be productive within 30 minutes of day one.
- Drive implementation of AI-augmented development capabilities including agentic coding tools, code assistants, and automated quality pipelines.
- Define and instrument platform metrics that surface developer productivity, satisfaction, and platform health - and use that data to prioritize improvements.
- Collaborate across engineering, security, and compliance teams to ensure implementations meet Mastercard's security and regulatory requirements.
- Mentor and provide technical guidance to senior and mid-level engineers on the team.
- Actively participate in the Software Engineering Guild, sharing technical expertise and promoting standard engineering patterns across the organization.
All About You:
- Extensive background in software engineering, including demonstrated technical leadership on platform, developer tooling, or developer experience (DevEx) products.
- Track record of leading technical delivery on complex, high-impact initiatives at enterprise scale - coordinating across engineers and workstreams without formal management authority.
- Deep familiarity with the modern developer tooling ecosystem, including:
- AI coding assistants: GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or similar
- Containerization and desktop dev environments: Docker Desktop, Kubernetes, DevContainers
- CI/CD and pipeline tooling: GitHub Actions, Jenkins, ArgoCD, or similar
- Developer portals and inner-source platforms: Backstage, or similar
- Experience working with AI-powered developer tools in a regulated enterprise environment, including an understanding of policy
compliance, access controls, and responsible AI usage.
- Strong understanding of developer experience (DevEx) principles and the ability to translate developer pain points into concrete
platform improvements.
- Experience designing and delivering pre-provisioned, standardized development environments at scale.
- Solid understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), including infrastructure automation and cloud-native development patterns.
- Ability to drive tool adoption through instrumentation, structured feedback mechanisms, and data-informed iteration.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills - able to articulate technical tradeoffs clearly to both engineers and non-technical
stakeholders.
- Proficiency with software development productivity metrics (e.g., DORA metrics, onboarding time, tool adoption rates) and using data to
guide technical decisions.
- Self-driven and effective in ambiguous, fast-evolving technology environments, comfortable shaping direction without waiting for
top-down clarity.
- Strong understanding of Agile/Scrum methodologies and SDLC best practices from design through deployment.
*Please note: This position requires candidates who are already located in the St. Louis, Missouri area. Relocation assistance is unavailable currently.
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