Principal Software Engineer

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 Overview: The Principal Engineer shapes technical architecture, solution patterns, and engineering approaches for strategic initiatives within Mastercard’s Security Solutions Organization (SSO). Sitting within Solutions Engineering, the role partners across Product, Engineering, Data Science, Security, and Platform teams to turn business opportunities into practical architecture concepts, reusable patterns, and prototypes. The role is primarily strategic but includes hands-on prototyping to validate concepts and accelerate decisions. It supports a range of emerging capabilities with a strong emphasis on reusability and cross-product platform thinking. Agentic Trust Data, Platforms & Non Network Intelligence is a key focus area, and this role will help define the architecture patterns and reusable foundations that enable Mastercard’s agentic and AI-driven solutions to scale.

Architecture & Platform Strategy • Define solution architectures, reusable patterns, and shared components across SSO initiatives. • Translate product and business needs into clear engineering concepts and architecture options. • Evaluate trade-offs across scalability, security, interoperability, and maintainability. • Identify connective architecture and reusable capabilities across products and platforms. Product Development Lifecycle Enablement • Apply strong PDLC experience to move initiatives from concept through validation to production readiness. • Partner with Product and Engineering teams to clarify technical requirements, dependencies, and risks. • Ensure architecture decisions account for real-world delivery, supportability, and platform evolution. Prototyping & Emerging Technology • Build prototypes and proofs of concept to validate architecture assumptions and demonstrate feasibility. • Use AI-assisted coding to accelerate exploration and development. • Explore emerging technologies, with particular attention to agentic commerce, AI agents, non-network intelligence, modern APIs, and cloud-native platforms. • Distinguish prototype work from production-grade implementation while informing product and engineering direction. Communication & Influence • Create clear architecture diagrams, technical narratives, and decision materials for varied audiences. • Present concepts and recommendations to engineers, product leaders, and senior stakeholders. • Drive cross-functional alignment and serve as a trusted technical advisor. All About You: • Extensive experience designing, building, and supporting production software. • Strong background as a software architect, principal engineer, or senior technical lead. • Deep knowledge of modern architecture, APIs, distributed systems, cloud-native platforms, and security. • Strong PDLC experience across discovery, architecture, delivery, and production readiness. • Hands-on experience building prototypes, proofs of concept, or reference implementations. • Comfortable using AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate development and validation. • Skilled at translating complex needs into practical technical approaches. • Strong communicator across engineering, product, business, and executive audiences. • Able to influence technical direction across teams without direct authority. • Experience in payments, commerce, fraud, identity, cybersecurity, or trust platforms preferred. • Experience with