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 ... (truncated, view full listing at source)