Principal Applied AI App Engineer

Mastercard Inc.; Pune District; On-site; INR 4,500,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Mastercard Inc. in Pune, India is seeking a Principal Applied AI App Engineer to lead the GBSC’s AI strategy and deliver production-grade AI applications. You will mentor engineers, collaborate with Data Science and ML teams, and ensure governance, security, and scalable design.

The role emphasizes responsible AI, bias mitigation, and cutting-edge techniques, with opportunities to shape enterprise AI standards across Mastercard’s global ecosystem.

Qualifications

• Advanced expertise integrating generative AI, LLMs, prompt engineering, and RAG architectures into business applications.
• Extensive experience deploying production-grade AI applications with observability and monitoring.
• Strong software engineering experience (Python, Java, C#, or similar).
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerized deployments.
• Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, and system design.
• Detail oriented with a passion for automation and adopting emerging technologies.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the GBSC’s design lead for AI based solutions within Mastercard’s evolving AI ecosystem.
• Design and develop production grade applications that embed machine learning and generative AI capabilities.
• Integrate trained models (ML, deep learning, or LLM-based) into APIs, services, workflows, and UIs.
• Collaborate with Data Science and ML Engineering teams to operationalize prebuilt models.
• Support model versioning, deployment, monitoring, and updates in production environments.
• Implement guardrails for model behavior, data quality, and responsible AI usage.
• Ensure AI applications meet enterprise standards for security, privacy, compliance, and ethical AI usage.
• Apply bias mitigation, explainability, and monitoring techniques where applicable.
• Follow secure coding and access control best practices.
• Stays abreast of emerging AI/ML engineering trends and incorporates innovative techniques into Mastercard’s AI ecosystem.
• Mentors team members by sharing best practices, innovative techniques, and emerging trends to develop expertise and capabilities around their discipline.

Skills

AI integration

LLMs

Python/Java/C#

Cloud platforms

Security & privacy

Tools

TensorFlow/PyTorch

Docker

Kubernetes

ML frameworks

Job description

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.

Principal Applied AI App Engineer

Who is Mastercard? Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Overview

The Global Business Solution Center (GBSC) Tech team is looking for a Principal AI Engineer to steer and implement the GBSC’s AI strategy. The ideal candidate is highly motivated, intellectually curious, analytical with a passion for reliability, scalability and automation.

Principal Applied AI App Engineer role:

• Serve as the GBSC’s design lead for AI based solutions within Mastercard’s evolving AI ecosystem
• Design and develop production grade applications that embed machine learning and generative AI capabilities
• Integrate trained models (ML, deep learning, or LLM-based) into APIs, services, workflows, and UIs
• Collaborate with Data Science and ML Engineering teams to operationalize prebuilt models
• Support model versioning, deployment, monitoring, and updates in production environments.
• Implement guardrails for model behavior, data quality, and responsible AI usage
• Ensure AI applications meet enterprise standards for security, privacy, compliance, and ethical AI usage
• Apply bias mitigation, explainability, and monitoring techniques where applicable
• Follow secure coding and access control best practices
• Stays abreast of emerging AI/ML engineering trends and incorporates innovative techniques into Mastercard’s AI ecosystem
• Mentors team members by sharing best practices, innovative techniques, and emerging trends to develop expertise and capabilities around their discipline

All About You:

• Advanced expertise integrating generative AI, LLMs, prompt engineering, and RAG architectures into business applications
• Extensive experience deploying production-grade AI applications that leverage evaluation, observability and monitoring
• Strong experience in software engineering (Python, Java, C#, or similar)
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerized deployments.
• Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, and system design
• Detail oriented with a passion for automation and adopting emerging technologies
• Experience advising / strategizing AI roadmaps and technology adoption

Desirable Capabilities

• Finance process fluency + leadership skills
• Strong communication skills / experience communicating with senior leaders and executives
• Excels working on a global team, communicating plans and leading execution across time zones

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.

Everyone wants easier ways to pay; we invent them. Checkout lines are slow; we speed them along. Merchants want more sales; we give them data and insights. People need financial access; we connect them. Corporate purchasing is complicated; we make it simple. Commuters are busy; we speed them on their way. Governments need greater efficiencies; we help create them. Small businesses are virtual; we give them access to a world of buyers. Retailers want to fight fraud; we provide the tools.