Vice President, Software Engineering

Engg; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 380,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Life/Disability insurance

Paid leave

Vacation days

Job summary

Mastercard seeks a visionary and hands-on VP of Software Engineering to lead Decision Stream, Mastercard's AI-native decisioning platform, at scale. You will partner with Product, Architecture, AI, and Platform Engineering to drive strategy and execution while building high‑performing teams.

You will shape a scalable, secure platform and align engineering investments with business value to deliver real-time decisions across fraud, authentication, payments and risk.

Qualifications

• Leading software engineering teams building large-scale distributed platforms.
• Cloud-native architectures, microservices, APIs, data platforms.
• Influence architecture and engage in technical design discussions.
• Deliver highly available, resilient, and mission-critical systems at scale.
• Strong collaboration, communication, and leadership skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead through technical excellence across engineering teams.
• Drive platform scalability, resilience, security, and performance.
• Build high-performing teams and mentor engineers.
• Partner with Product and business stakeholders to align engineering investments with value.
• Establish engineering metrics and continuous improvement practices.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud-native architectures

APIs

Data platforms

Event-driven systems

Tools

Kafka

Flink

Kubernetes

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.

Vice President, Software Engineering

Decision Stream is Mastercard's next-generation AI-native decisioning platform, designed to power intelligent, real-time decisions across fraud, authentication, payments, and risk. Built with a startup mindset and enterprise-scale ambition, the platform combines innovation, speed, and engineering excellence to redefine decisioning across Mastercard's global ecosystem. We are seeking a visionary and hands‑on VP of Software Engineering to help build and scale the platform. This leader will partner closely with Product, Architecture, AI, and Platform Engineering teams to drive technology strategy, architecture, engineering execution, and organizational growth.

What You'll Do

Lead Through Technical Excellence

• Serve as a senior technology leader and role model for engineering teams.
• Drive architecture, design, and technology decisions across distributed systems, streaming, AI, and cloud-native platforms.
• Engage deeply with engineers, architects, and product leaders to solve complex technical challenges.
• Influence engineering standards, software quality, and operational excellence.

Build and Scale the Platform

• Help shape and deliver a highly scalable, resilient, and secure decisioning platform operating at Mastercard scale.
• Balance long-term platform vision with day‑to‑day execution.
• Drive simplicity, reliability, performance, and continuous innovation.

Build High‑Performing Teams

• Recruit, mentor, and develop exceptional engineering talent.
• Foster a culture of ownership, technical curiosity, accountability, and collaboration.
• Build strong technical leadership across engineering teams.

Deliver Business Outcomes

• Partner closely with Product and business stakeholders to align engineering investments with customer and business value.
• Drive execution from concept through production adoption.
• Establish operational rhythms, engineering metrics, and continuous improvement practices.

Qualifications Required

• Proven experience leading software engineering teams building large-scale distributed platforms.
• Strong hands‑on technical background in cloud-native architectures, microservices, APIs, data platforms, and event‑driven systems.
• Demonstrated ability to influence architecture and engage deeply in technical design discussions.
• Track record delivering highly available, resilient, and mission‑critical systems at scale.
• Strong collaboration, communication, and leadership skills.

Preferred

• Experience with AI/ML platforms and intelligent decisioning systems.
• Experience with technologies such as Kafka, Flink, Kubernetes, and modern cloud platforms.
• Background in payments, fraud, risk, or financial services.
• Experience building new platforms, products, or transformational technology initiatives.

Leadership Expectations

• Operate as a builder, innovator, and servant leader.
• Combine strategic thinking with hands‑on technical engagement.
• Demonstrate curiosity, ownership, and a bias for action.
• Lead through technical credibility, coaching, and execution excellence.
• Inspire teams to solve hard problems and deliver meaningful business outcomes.
• Expected to regularly engage in architecture reviews, design discussions, technology trade‑off decisions, and critical problem‑solving, while helping define the long‑term technology vision for Decision Stream.

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.

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.

Benefits

• 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