Principal Software Engineer (Architecture)

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 Principal Software Engineer (Architecture) Our Purpose We connect and power an inclusive digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere. We enable safe, simple, smart, and accessible transactions through secure data, strong networks, partnerships, and innovation. Our culture is driven by our Decency Quotient (DQ), fostering inclusion, respect, and diversity. We believe that diverse perspectives strengthen decision-making, drive innovation, and deliver better business outcomes.

Mastercard’s Network & Digital Payments group creates meaningful experiences for consumers while enabling merchants and issuers to engage in ways not possible in the pre-digital world. The Global Product Engineering team builds foundational payment solutions at scale. This role offers an opportunity to work in a high-impact environment focused on delivering secure, convenient, and controlled digital payment experiences. We are looking for leaders who: • Have experience building and scaling global products • Are passionate about driving a world beyond cash • Thrive in agile environments with high standards of engineering excellence Role In this role, you will drive collaboration across engineering, product management, enterprise functions, and regional business teams. You will also lead by defining the technical strategy, architecture, design, and execution to iteratively achieve outcomes • Own architecture across APIs, microservices, data, and integration patterns to deliver scalable, resilient, high-performance systems • Drive end-to-end design and implementation of critical services, staying hands-on in complex and high-risk areas • Lead key decisions across performance, scalability, reliability, security, and observability • Balance long-term architecture vision with practical delivery needs, platform stability, and business priorities • Partner closely with product, engineering, and architects to align roadmaps, transition states, and delivery sequencing • Provide technical leadership through design reviews, guidance, and hands-on support to engineering teams • Ensure solutions are cohesive, supportable, and aligned with enterprise standards and governance • Contribute to architecture governance, reviews, and documentation to drive clarity and execution alignment • Drive engineering excellence and modern practices (DDD, event-driven design, secure-by-design) • Lead early-stage initiatives (PoCs, pilots) and accelerate speed to market and platform evolution • Mentor engineers and emerging architects, strengthening technical capability across teams • Build strong collaboration across teams to ensure delivery quality, maintainability, and long-term platform health About You • Proven experience architecting large-scale, high-performance distributed platforms in complex enterprise environments. Must be high-energy, detail-oriented and proactive with the ability to function under pressure in an independent environment. • Strong ability to define solution direction across multiple teams and support engineering through design, build, and delivery. • Ability to communicate architecture clearly to support alignment, decision-making, and execution. • Strong partnership skills, with the ability to work closely with product teams to shape solution roadmaps and align architecture with evolving business priorities. • Confidence in leading decisions, managing trade-offs, and influencing