Manager, Software Engineering (Sanction Service)

Mastercard Colombia, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 89,000 - 142,000; Full time

Job summary

Mastercard is seeking a Manager of Software Engineering to lead the Sanctions Service platform. You will guide architectural decisions, scale systems, and ensure secure, compliant payment processing. You will also mentor a growing team and shape the engineering culture.

The role blends technical leadership (70%) with people management (30%), focusing on AI-assisted workflows, governance, and continuous delivery improvements within a regulated payments environment.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading software engineering teams.
• Experience designing distributed, highly available systems.
• Strong stakeholder-management and communication skills.
• Experience with Agile software development practices.
• Passion for mentoring engineers and building high-performing teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical direction and delivery strategy for the Sanctions Service platform.
• Architect scalable, secure solutions and drive modernization efforts.
• Mentor and manage a high-performing software engineering team.
• Collaborate with Product, Compliance and Operations teams to deliver critical capabilities.
• Drive incident response, root cause analysis and continuous improvement.

Skills

Tech leadership

Distributed systems

Agile development

Mentoring engineers

AI tooling

Education

Bachelor’s in Computer Science

Tools

Cloud platforms

DevOps

Observability tooling

Job description

Our Purpose

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build asustainableeconomy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactionssecure, 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

Manager, Software Engineering (Sanction Service)

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

We are seeking a Manager, Software Engineering to lead the development and evolution of Mastercard's Sanctions Screening solutions. These solutions help financial institutions assess sanctions risk for payment transactions in real time, supporting regulatory compliance, risk management and secure global payment processing.

This role is a hybrid of roughly 70% technical leadership and 30% people management. The successful candidate will remain deeply involved in system solutioning, technical designs, engineering execution and continuous improvement on AI assist software development workflow while also building, mentoring and leading a high-performing engineering team(of 7 people now)

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership (70%)

• Own the technical direction, architecture and delivery strategy for the Sanctions Service platform, built in Java and C++ primarily.
• Lead the design and implementation of scalable, reliable and secure software solutions meeting the common of enterprise standards.
• Drive engineering excellence through design reviews, code quality, operational readiness and best practices.
• Partner with Product, Architecture, Compliance and Operations teams to deliver business-critical capabilities.
• Lead incident response, root cause analysis and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Drive modernization efforts focused on scalability, resilience, cloud readiness and operational efficiency.
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex engineering and production challenges.

AI & Agentic Engineering

• Define and execute a strategy for adopting AI-assisted and agentic engineering capabilities across the software development lifecycle.
• Leverage AI tools to improve software delivery, testing, operational support, documentation and developer productivity, focusing on achieve faster iteration on requirements gathering, specification elaboration and concepts validation
• Identify opportunities to automate engineering workflows and reduce operational overhead.
• Establish guardrails and governance for responsible AI adoption, including security, transparency and human oversight.
• Foster a culture of experimentation and innovation while maintaining strong compliance and risk controls.

People Leadership (30%)

• Lead and develop a high-performing team of software engineers.
• Conduct regular coaching, career development discussions and performance management activities.
• Create an inclusive, accountable and psychologically safe team culture.
• Partner with recruiting to attract, retain and develop top engineering talent.
• Drive planning, prioritization and execution of team roadmaps and delivery commitments.
• Establish clear goals, expectations and ownership across the team.

Qualifications

Required

• Proven experience leading software engineering teams and delivering large-scale enterprise software solutions.
• Strong technical background with experience designing distributed, highly available systems.
• Demonstrated ability to balance hands-on technical leadership with people management responsibilities.
• Experience managing product roadmaps, business priorities, engineering deliverables and technical risks.
• Strong communication, collaboration and stakeholder-management skills.
• Experience with Agile software development and modern engineering practices.
• Passion for mentoring engineers and building high-performing teams.

Preferred

• Experience in payments, financial services, compliance, fraud, sanctions screening or risk management will be a great bonus.
• Experience leveraging AI-assisted development tools, agentic workflows or intelligent automation solutions.
• Experience operating services in regulated, security-sensitive environments.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms, DevOps practices and modern observability tooling.
• Bachelor’s in computer science, Engineering or a related discipline.

What Success Looks Like

• A high-performing engineering team with strong engagement, accountability and technical excellence.
• Predictable delivery of secure, scalable and reliable Sanctions Service capabilities.
• Successful adoption of AI-enabled engineering practices proven by industries that improve productivity and delivery quality.
• Measurable improvements in platform resilience, operational efficiency and customer outcomes.
• Strong alignment across engineering, product, compliance and operational stakeholders.

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 [e-mail] 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

• 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 Canada, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive pay based on location, experience and other qualifications for the role and may be eligible to participate in a discretionary annual incentive program.

Pay Ranges

Vancouver, Canada: $127,000 - $203,000 CAD