Lead Software Development Engineer
Mastercard•O'fallon, MO
•$140,000 - $231,000•Onsite
About The Position
The Lead Software Development Engineer is a technical leader responsible for driving software architecture, engineering strategy, and delivery of Mastercard's next-generation payment platforms. This role combines hands-on engineering leadership with architecture ownership, modernization initiatives, and adoption of Agentic AI-powered engineering practices.
Requirements
- 10+ years of software engineering experience.
- 3+ years leading large-scale distributed system initiatives.
- Expert-level Java, Spring Boot, REST APIs, microservices architecture, and distributed systems expertise.
- Strong software architecture and software design leadership experience.
- Deep expertise in performance engineering and reliability engineering.
- Extensive experience implementing secure coding standards and software quality practices.
- Experience mentoring engineers and leading technical decision-making.
- Deep understanding of observability, monitoring, operability, and production support.
- Demonstrated experience with AI-assisted software development, AI agents, MCP, RAG, and agentic workflows.
- Strong communication, stakeholder management, and technical leadership skills.
Responsibilities
- Lead software design and architecture decisions across multiple teams and platforms.
- Define engineering standards for software development, testing, security, operability, and deployment.
- Conduct architecture reviews and provide technical governance across projects.
- Mentor engineers and cultivate a culture of engineering excellence.
- Architect highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems capable of processing millions of transactions daily.
- Drive performance engineering initiatives including load testing, capacity planning, scalability analysis, and production optimization.
- Design solutions supporting low latency, high throughput, resiliency, and operational excellence.
- Design and implement large-scale event-driven architectures utilizing Kafka and modern messaging patterns.
- Drive adoption of asynchronous processing and distributed system design best practices.
- Lead development and deployment using PCF, Kubernetes, Docker, and CI/CD platforms.
- Champion platform engineering and infrastructure automation practices.
- Establish secure coding standards and application security best practices.
- Drive operational readiness, observability, monitoring, and supportability strategies.
- Lead complex troubleshooting efforts, root cause analysis, and remediation activities.
- Establish standards for unit, functional, and integration testing.
- Lead adoption of AI-assisted development, AI agents, MCP-based integrations, autonomous workflows, and modern engineering productivity tools.
- Evaluate and implement emerging AI engineering capabilities while ensuring governance and responsible AI practices.
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
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
