Director, AI Engineering, Transformation Team

Mastercard•Arlington, VA

5d•$170,000 - $323,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Transformation Team leads strategic change initiatives to reimagine how Mastercard works and scales, simplifies, and accelerates business outcomes. The team partners across leadership, product, technology, and operations to design and implement new organizational models, embed AI across key workflows, drive enterprise-wide transformation programs, improve operating effectiveness, and ensure successful adoption of change. By combining strategy, AI engineering, organizational design, change management, and program execution, the team helps align people, processes, and priorities to support long-term growth and business performance.

Requirements

Strong hands-on understanding of transformer architectures and generative AI, including fine-tuning, prompting, embeddings, and evaluation
Experience bridging model development and real-world application, translating AI capabilities into business impact
Solid engineering background, with familiarity in Python, ML frameworks (e.g. PyTorch/TensorFlow), and production deployment patterns
Experience working with data engineering and MLOps practices to support training, evaluation, and inference at scale
Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to align technical delivery to business priorities and measurable outcomes
Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, evolving AI landscape with ambiguity and shifting priorities
Excellent communication skills, able to articulate complex AI concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences

Responsibilities

Develops and executes short-term and medium-term strategic plans for AI Engineering across Mastercard, aligning functional initiatives with organizational objectives by modifying existing methods to make significant improvements to existing processes, programs, and/or policies.
Drives the development and execution of short-term functional strategies for AI/ML teams, translating organizational priorities into actionable plans and deliverables.
Collaborates with product and business leaders to translate organizational needs into scalable AI solutions and operational strategies.
Oversees the ML engineering lifecycle of AI/ML projects, from architecture, design to deployment and monitoring, ensuring timely delivery within scope and budget.
Leads cross-functional teams in optimizing, fine-tuning, and deploying models that meet performance, robustness, and ethical standards, ensuring operational stability, scalability, and compliance of AI/ML systems, including model governance, ethical standards, and risk management.
Provides technical guidance and mentorship to senior technical leads, supporting their professional growth and ensuring technical excellence.
Serves as a key stakeholder and influencer in cross-functional initiatives, working closely with product managers, data scientists, and business units to align AI/ML solutions with strategic objectives.
Defines and refines best practices, standards, and methodologies for AI/ML optimization, deployment, and maintenance, ensuring consistency and high-quality outputs.
Contributes to organizational strategy by identifying emerging trends, evaluating new technologies, and recommending investments in AI/ML capabilities.

Benefits

insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance)
flexible spending account and health savings account
16 weeks of new parent leave
up to 20 days of bereavement leave
80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time
25 days of vacation time
5 personal days
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