Principal Software Architect, AI

Mastercard • Toronto, ON

6d • CA$154,000 - CA$247,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Mastercard is looking for a talented Principal Software Architect to join the Mastercard Foundry Research and Development team in our Toronto location. In this role you will be part of a highly agile, AI native development team building innovative large-scale software platforms and solutions from ideation to release. Our team is built on a foundation of research and development, mining innovation internally, innovating new product lines with emerging technology, managing new products from inception to market validation and engaging strategically with start-ups to shape the future of commerce with and for our customers. At Mastercard you will help define the future of commerce globally. As an architect on the R&D team, you will be at the forefront of the design of complex, large-scale data-oriented new product concepts. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who is deeply engaged in using Generative and Agentic AI through the full product development lifecycle. You will work on lean, high-performance pods to architect software solutions to rapidly evolving product concepts which heavily leverage Mastercard and other datasets. The team will rapidly experiment with and iterate on AI native ways of working. We are looking for someone with deep experience designing large-scale customer-facing applications with significant data dependencies and significant experience leveraging AI in software architecture.

Requirements

• Hands on experience architecting and building 0 -> 1 applications using Generative AI, LLMs, or agentic patterns
• Expertise leading the architecture, design, implementation, and release of complex products and applications
• Experience with one or more modern AI frameworks and SDKs for agent orchestration, AI application development, or coding-agent workflows (e.g., LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, or Codex SDK)
• Expertise in cloud platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, and Azure
• Knowledge of AI/ML, data analytics, and data product development with emphasis on data quality, data privacy, and localization
• Uses AI as part of daily engineering practice
• Brings both engineering depth and a product mindset
• Proficiency with Java, Spring Boot, React, Typescript, Postgres and other object-oriented languages, front-end frameworks, and database technologies
• Strong business acumen and ability to apply technology to solve business problems
• Excellent verbal and written communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
• Proven track record as a highly effective technical mentor

Responsibilities

• Design highly scalable solution architectures for complex, early-stage product concepts across technology stacks, data platforms, and environments
• Be a cultural influencer in use, adoption, and innovation of AI in solution architecture and software engineering through all phases of the product development lifecycle
• Provide technical leadership on projects to architect, design, implement, deploy, and release complex applications, interfaces, and integrations
• Contribute significantly to the technical strategy and lead implementation of the architecture of Data Platforms in Foundry R&D
• Lead the productionalization of AI systems including observability, evaluation, and cost optimization
• Establish best practices for responsible AI, ensuring compliance, explainability and data privacy
• Coach teams on technical best practices and use of AI across the PDLC

Benefits

• Competitive pay based on location, experience and other qualifications for the role
• May be eligible to participate in a discretionary annual incentive program

What This Job Offers

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