Senior Software Engineer | Data & AI Platform

Mastercard•Arlington, VA

2d•$132,000 - $212,000

About The Position

Data Foundations, part of Business & Market Insights, solves shared data problems for Mastercard’s analytics products, including secure customer data exchange, consistent business definitions and metrics, reference datasets, data quality, and AI-assisted customer data onboarding. Engineering and product teams set direction together and own outcomes. The team reuses and shapes enterprise platforms where they fit and addresses shared gaps once for the organization. The Senior Software Engineer will be one of the first engineers on a new US-based team. The initial focus is making business definitions, metrics, and dataset relationships reusable across products, delivering key components independently, and helping establish the team’s engineering practices. The engineer will prototype approaches to shared metric versioning and data-access enforcement, then ship the first shared component with the product team that will use it. The role designs, builds, tests, and releases shared services, libraries, and pipelines for other engineering teams. It partners with product managers to understand business problems, challenge assumptions, and simplify solutions; prepares design proposals and evaluates technologies through proofs of concept; and creates documented, versioned interfaces with automated deployment and testing. The engineer builds secure, scalable, observable components, supports incident response and root cause analysis, participates in code and design reviews, mentors engineers, and contributes to technology strategy and the roadmap. The position requires strong software engineering and production operations expertise, advanced SQL, development experience in Python or another modern language, and experience with modern cloud and data platforms. The successful candidate brings an understanding of data modeling and shared metrics, builds reusable platform capabilities for other engineering teams, communicates and documents effectively, and connects end-user needs to measurable business value. Mastercard expects employees to protect its assets, information, and networks by following security policies, ensuring confidentiality and integrity, reporting suspected violations or breaches, and completing mandatory security training. The position is intended to be filled by 01/19/2027; if that date has passed, Mastercard intends to fill it as soon as possible. The listed Arlington, Virginia base salary range is $132,000–$212,000 USD. The successful candidate may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role, and salary may vary based on factors such as location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Mastercard describes benefits generally available to full-time and certain part-time employees, including insurance, paid leave, paid holidays, retirement matching, fitness reimbursement or facilities, and tuition reimbursement.

Requirements

Strong expertise in software design, testing, secure coding practices, CI/CD, and operating production services.
Advanced SQL skills.
Hands-on development experience with Python or another modern programming language such as Java, C#/.NET, Go, or TypeScript.
Experience with modern cloud and data platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
Proven ability to design APIs, reusable libraries, and platform capabilities consumed by other engineering teams.
Strong understanding of data modeling, including entity relationships, aggregation challenges, data contracts, and version control of shared metrics.
Product-minded approach to engineering, with strong technical communication and documentation skills.
Ability to understand end-user needs and build solutions that deliver measurable business value.

Nice To Haves

Experience with semantic layers, metric stores, dbt, data catalogs, or business glossary platforms.
Experience building tools, frameworks, or supporting context for AI agents and large language model applications.
Knowledge of data governance, access controls, row-level security, and handling sensitive or regulated data.
Experience using AI-powered engineering tools to improve productivity, with sound judgment about accuracy, risk, and appropriate use cases.
Curiosity, a continuous learning mindset, and passion for driving innovation through technology.

Responsibilities

Design, build, test, and release shared services, libraries, and pipelines that enable and support other engineering teams.
Partner with product managers to understand business problems, challenge assumptions, and simplify solutions where possible.
Create concise design proposals describing trade-offs, recommendations, and implementation approaches.
Evaluate enterprise and vendor technologies through proofs of concept to inform build-versus-buy decisions.
Develop reusable, versioned interfaces with comprehensive documentation and automated deployment and testing capabilities.
Build secure, scalable, and observable components.
Support incident response, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis.
Participate in code and design reviews, mentor engineers, and contribute to the team’s technology strategy and roadmap.
Prototype approaches to shared metric versioning and data-access enforcement, and ship the first shared component with its product team.
Follow Mastercard security policies and practices, protect the confidentiality and integrity of accessed information, report suspected security violations or breaches, and complete mandatory security training.

Benefits

Insurance, including 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 hire date.
10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays.
401(k) with company match.
Deferred compensation for eligible roles.
Fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities.
Tuition reimbursement eligibility.
Potential annual bonus or commissions, depending on the role.