Lead Software Engineer (Architect)

Mastercard•O'fallon, MO

1d•$140,000 - $231,000

About The Position

The Mastercard Authentication Program delivers authentication solutions that enable secure digital commerce globally. Smart Interface is Mastercard’s EMV 3-D Secure (3DS) Server platform and a critical part of the EMVCo 3DS ecosystem, supporting secure, scalable, standards-compliant communication among merchants, gateways, acquirers, Directory Servers, and issuer Access Control Servers. Mastercard is seeking a highly experienced Lead Software Engineer (Architect) to provide technical leadership and help define and drive the long-term architecture and technology strategy of the Smart Interface platform. The role combines software engineering and architecture expertise, EMV 3DS domain knowledge, and hands-on technical leadership to guide the design, development, and evolution of Mastercard’s next-generation authentication platform. The successful candidate will lead platform architecture and engineering, develop secure and resilient distributed transaction systems, guide engineers, and collaborate with product, engineering, architecture, and standards teams. The role also includes mentoring, communicating technical decisions to stakeholders, supporting production systems, and helping evolve Mastercard authentication technologies. The position is intended to be filled by 01/12/2027, or as soon as possible if that date has passed.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related discipline.
15 or more years of software engineering experience, including significant technical leadership responsibilities.
Proven experience designing and delivering large-scale distributed enterprise applications and platforms.
Strong cloud engineering experience across Azure, AWS, GCP, or equivalent platforms, including containerization.
Hands-on development experience with Java and Spring Boot.
Deep expertise in microservices, REST APIs, OpenAPI specifications, API-first design, event-driven architectures, and distributed systems.
Experience building high-volume, low-latency transactional applications.
Advanced experience with software design and development, code review, testing, troubleshooting, and production support.
Strong understanding of data structures, relational and NoSQL databases, performance engineering, observability, and secure coding practices.
Deep knowledge of the EMV 3-D Secure ecosystem and authentication flows.
Experience with 3DS Servers, Directory Servers, Access Control Servers, authentication services, tokenization platforms, payment gateways, or card-payment processing systems.
Strong understanding of digital identity, authentication protocols, fraud prevention, payment participants, and transaction lifecycles.
Understanding of regulations affecting digital authentication and payments.
Strong technical problem-solving, strategic thinking, communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
Ability to translate complex technical concepts into business outcomes.
Proven experience mentoring engineers and working across globally distributed teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience developing or supporting a commercial EMV 3DS Server platform and EMVCo certification or compliance.
Knowledge of Mastercard Authentication products and services.
Experience supporting high-volume payment platforms.
Knowledge of PSD2 SCA and related authentication regulations.
Experience with tokenization, digital credentials, or identity verification.
Familiarity with biometrics, FIDO2, passkeys, Kafka, SRE, DevSecOps, and CI/CD.

Responsibilities

Lead the design, development, and evolution of the Smart Interface platform.
Translate business, product, and technical requirements into scalable, maintainable, and secure solutions.
Provide hands-on leadership across design, development, testing, deployment, production readiness, and support.
Own and evolve platform architecture and contribute to technical roadmaps aligned with business and product strategy.
Guide engineers through complex technical decisions and lead code and design reviews.
Design highly available, low-latency transaction systems and cloud-native distributed applications using microservices, APIs, and event-driven architectures.
Define integration and API standards and lead modernization initiatives to improve scalability, performance, and maintainability.
Apply software design, architecture, Domain-Driven Design, and data-structure principles to distributed systems.
Develop reusable components, frameworks, and engineering patterns.
Apply secure coding, encryption, authentication, TLS/mTLS, certificate management, and secrets management practices.
Design for resilience through fault isolation, retry strategies, disaster recovery, and multi-region deployment.
Promote unit, functional, and integration testing, performance engineering, observability, and production diagnostics.
Troubleshoot complex issues, perform root-cause analysis, and address technical debt and engineering risks.
Serve as a technical lead for Mastercard’s 3DS Server platform and lead development of EMV 3DS capabilities supporting current and future EMVCo standards.
Drive adoption of emerging authentication technologies and ensure interoperability across merchants, gateways, acquirers, Directory Servers, and ACS providers.
Partner with product, engineering, architecture, and standards teams to evolve authentication capabilities.
Mentor engineers and technical leads in software design, development, and engineering practices.
Communicate technical decisions, trade-offs, and recommendations to engineering, product, and business stakeholders.
Influence technical direction without direct authority and foster collaboration and continuous improvement.
Follow Mastercard security policies, protect information assets, report suspected security incidents or violations, complete required security and compliance training, and support secure, resilient payment solutions.

Benefits

Medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance.
Flexible spending account and health savings account.
Paid leaves, including 16 weeks of new parent leave and up to 20 days of bereavement leave.
80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time.
25 days of vacation time and 5 personal days, prorated based on date of hire.
10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays.
401(k) with a company match.
Deferred compensation for eligible roles.
Fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities.
Eligibility for tuition reimbursement.
May be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions, depending on the role.