Vice President, Software Engineering

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 Vice President, Software Engineering Overview 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.

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.

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