Lead Platform Engineer, Operational Data Store

Global Payments Inc. • Cincinnati, OH

3d

About The Position

Global Payments is seeking a Lead Platform Engineer to join its Enterprise Data Platform Engineering Team and help build a next-generation Operational Data Store (ODS). The platform will support real-time payment experiences, fraud prevention, merchant servicing, and other business-critical applications. As a technical leader on an early-stage platform build, this role will influence architecture, technology selection, engineering standards, and platform strategy while addressing scale, resiliency, and performance challenges.

The position focuses on delivering a secure, scalable, and resilient platform that provides low-latency access to critical payment data across global markets. The engineer will drive reliability and operational excellence, develop automation and self-service capabilities, establish technical standards, mentor engineers, and guide architectural decisions. The role will also help turn proof-of-concept initiatives into production-ready enterprise data services.

Requirements

• Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed data platforms in production environments.
• Leadership responsibility for complex technical initiatives.
• Deep expertise with distributed NoSQL databases and low-latency architectures.
• Track record of optimizing performance, scalability, and reliability under demanding workloads.
• Strong experience with Apache Kafka, event-driven systems, and high-volume data streaming solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical direction, influence architecture decisions, and mentor engineers.
• Experience driving adoption of engineering best practices.
• Product-focused mindset, strong communication skills, accountability, and ability to translate complex technical challenges into scalable business solutions.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in payments, fintech, or other highly regulated industries where security, compliance, and operational resilience are essential.
• Experience building internal platform products, database-as-a-service capabilities, or multi-tenant self-service solutions for enterprise engineering teams.
• Familiarity with Apache Iceberg, lakehouse technologies, or active-active multi-region architectures.
• Contributions to the data infrastructure open-source community.

Responsibilities

• Shape the architecture of a strategic enterprise platform, defining scalable and resilient solutions for real-time access to critical payment data.
• Drive platform performance, reliability, availability, low-latency experiences, and operational excellence at enterprise scale.
• Create automation and self-service capabilities that reduce onboarding time and increase engineering productivity.
• Establish technical standards, mentor engineers, and guide architectural decisions to improve platform quality, scalability, and sustainability.
• Transform proof-of-concept initiatives into production-ready enterprise data capabilities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed