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

Lead Software Developer – Job Description Summary

Overview

The Lead Software Developer is a technical leader responsible for designing, developing, and delivering scalable, secure, and high-performing software solutions while providing technical leadership across engineering teams. This role combines deep hands-on development expertise with architectural leadership, mentoring, and cross-functional collaboration to drive successful product delivery and technology innovation. The individual serves as a subject matter expert, influences technical strategy, promotes engineering best practices, and guides teams in building resilient, cloud-native applications.

Role

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and implementation of enterprise-scale software solutions.
• Define application architecture, technology standards, and engineering best practices.
• Drive technical design discussions and architectural decisions across multiple teams.
• Develop and maintain scalable, resilient, and secure microservices-based platforms.
• Perform code reviews and ensure adherence to quality, security, and performance standards.
• Mentor and coach engineers, fostering technical excellence and continuous learning.
• Collaborate with Product, Architecture, Operations, and Business stakeholders to deliver strategic initiatives.
• Lead troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and resolution of complex production issues.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and drive innovation through Proof of Concepts (PoCs).

Required Technical Expertise

AI & Intelligent Solutions

AI solution architecture, enterprise AI integration, prompt engineering, AI governance, and AI-powered automation and productivity solutions.

Application Development & Design

Advanced Java development, Spring Boot, object-oriented design and programming, SOLID principles, design patterns, and Domain-Driven Design (DDD).

Distributed Systems & Microservices

Distributed systems architecture, microservices architecture, event-driven architecture, service discovery, circuit breakers, resilience patterns, and scalable system design.

API & Integration Engineering

RESTful API development, API gateway patterns, API security (OAuth2, JWT, OpenID Connect), and integration with enterprise platforms and external services.

Engineering Excellence

Code quality, technical debt management, performance engineering, scalability, and software architecture best practices.

All about you

Preferred Experience

• 10+ years of software development experience.
• 3+ years in a technical lead or lead developer role.
• Proven experience building enterprise-scale distributed systems.
• Strong track record of leading architecture and modernization initiatives.
• Experience delivering AI-enabled solutions in production environments.

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.