Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software EngineerMastercard 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.As a Principal Engineer within the Decision Stream program, you will combine enterprise-scale technical leadership with hands-on engineering for the next-generation Decision Management Platform. This is not a strategy-only role. You will actively design, code, prototype, and validate core platform capabilities, using modern AI-assisted development tools as part of day-to-day software engineering to move faster, improve quality, and help teams adopt better ways of building.Key areas of focus include leveraging disruptive technologies in real-time AI inferencing and decisioning to improve product effectiveness, increase business delivery, strengthen technical resilience, and lower cost of ownership. You will work closely with technology executives, senior leaders, and engineers to shape the overall AI & DPE technology strategy.Key Responsibilities:Platform & Product DevelopmentBuild software, tooling, and platform capabilities.Design and implement large scale distributed systems.Develop reusable services, patterns, and integrations.Contribute to new product and prototype development from concept through validation.Evaluation & Technical JudgmentEvaluate systems, frameworks, and tools across quality, cost, latency, scalability, reliability, and maintainability.Apply sound engineering judgment to trade-offs in distributed systems design and architecture.Developer Experience & EnablementApply AI tools as part of daily engineering practice to real product and platform problems.Teach and model the adoption of AI-assisted development, modern languages, and current engineering practices.Improve developer experience through automation, AI-assisted workflows, and platform thinking.Advocate learnings, prototypes, and best practices across the organization.Customer Experience & Platform StrategyOwn and improve end-to-end customer experience across a portfolio of services and applications.Simplify and optimize architecture strategies to balance cost, performance, and business value.Apply judgment and experience to make trade-offs between competing priorities and technical constraints.Thought Leadership & InfluenceLead architectural design for complex, enterprise-wide initiatives spanning multiple services and programs.Drive organization-wide initiatives to advance software engineering craftsmanship and best practices.Represent the organization through public speaking, technical blogs, and white papers on emerging technologies.Participate in Principle-level architecture reviews and resolve enterprise-wide technical and regulatory challenges.Talent & CultureMentor engineers at all levels, fostering technical growth and leadership.Conduct technical interviews to raise the performance bar and attract top talent.Provide unbiased, accomplishment-based recommendations for promotions.Champion AI-assisted engineering as a default working practice and align it with organizational values.What We're Looking For:You are an awesome engineer and leader who is passionate about joining a like-minded team at Mastercard AI & Decision Product Enablement. You thrive on solving complex engineering challenges at scale and have experience building high-speed streaming platforms or distributed systems at hyperscaler-level performance.AI-native engineer — uses AI-assisted development as defaultInnovation leader — builds systems at massive scale and availabilityStreaming-first mindset — experience with low-latency pipelinesProven outcomes — delivers impactful, production-ready systemsEngineering culture champion — drives best practices and transparencyCollaborative — works across engineering and data science teamsTechnical Domains:Decisioning Data & Feature PlatformsHigh-Throughput, Low-Latency & Real-Time SystemsAI & ML SystemsDecisioning Tooling & UXCloud Infrastructure, Platform Engineering & DevOpsRequirements:Extensive experience in software engineering and technical leadership - Proven delivery of large-scale distributed systems - Expertise in cloud, AI/data platforms, and modern engineering practices - Strong communication and mentorship skills - Bachelor's degree (or equivalent); advanced degree preferredCorporate 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, andComplete 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. Mastercard benefits for full time (and certain part time) employees generally include: 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 time and 5 personal days, pro-rated based on date of hire; 10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays; 401k with a best-in-class company match; deferred compensation for eligible roles; fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities; eligibility for tuition reimbursement; and many more. Mastercard benefits for interns generally include: 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time; jury duty leave; and on-site fitness facilities in some locations.Pay Ranges:Arlington, Virginia: $195,000 - $323,000 USDAtlanta, Georgia: $170,000 - $281,000 USD