Principal Software Engineer (Senior Architect)

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, Senior Architect

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 Corporate Technology Solutions (CTS) team is seeking a senior Principal Architect to shape and advance the technical vision behind Mastercard’s most critical corporate platforms. This role sits at the intersection of strategy and execution—driving architecture decisions that modernize how Risk, Compliance, and People & Capabilities technologies operate at global scale.

Reporting to the SVP, you will help define and evolve the enterprise architecture that underpins Mastercard’s hybrid cloud and on‑premises environment, enabling secure, resilient, and data‑driven platforms. By combining deep hands‑on technical expertise with strong enterprise influence, you will play a pivotal role in unlocking the full value of corporate technology and data—accelerating outcomes while meeting rigorous regulatory, resiliency, and performance expectations.

Role

• Serve as a foundational technical and data architecture leader, partnering closely with the SVP, engineering, and product leadership to shape enterprise scale platforms and standards.
• Define and evolve target architectures across third party SaaS, full stack engineering, and data platforms, modernizing core components of Mastercard’s corporate technology backbone.
• Drive adoption of modern data technologies and architectural patterns, designing scalable, resilient solutions while championing a data first mindset that enables enterprise analytics and AI outcomes.
• Provide hands on technical leadership and guidance, influencing engineering teams on design best practices, solution trade‑offs, and implementation strategies.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders, clearly communicating complex architectural topics in concise, business oriented language to support informed decision making.
• Produce and govern key architectural documentation, ensuring compliance with Mastercard’s engineering principles and security standards.
• Mentor and empower cross functional teams, fostering a culture of technical excellence, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement while governing architectural standards and documentation.

All About You

• Proven experience operating as a Principal Engineer or equivalent, leading enterprise scale data architecture or platform strategy
• Advanced expertise in designing, building, and modernizing enterprise‑scale systems, including SaaS integrations and full stack custom solutions.
• Exceptional communicator, able to effectively articulate technical details to engineering teams and translate complex architectural concepts into business language for less technical audiences.
• Demonstrated success in modernizing data platforms, with strong understanding of modern data architectures (lakehouse, curated domains, metadata driven pipelines)
• Ability to lead and influence architectural initiatives, partnering effectively across engineering and business teams.
• Hands‑on experience with technologies such as Java, REST APIs, middleware and integration, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Databricks), containers/orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), data platforms (Cloudera, Spark), and SaaS architecture patterns.
• Hands on technical leader known for building trust and mentoring engineers
• Motivated by continuous learning and challenge, bringing curiosity, resilience, and energy to complex problem spaces and opportunities for impact.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

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 View email address on click.appcast.io 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

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. 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

Purchase, New York: $195,000 - $323,000 USD

New York City, New York: $204,000 - $337,000 USD

O'Fallon, Missouri: $170,000 - $281,000 USD