Mastercard is a global leader in powering economies and empowering individuals across more than 200 countries. We are dedicated to building a sustainable economy where everyone can thrive by offering a diverse range of secure, simple, and smart digital payment solutions. Our innovative technology, robust partnerships, and extensive networks are designed to help people, businesses, and governments achieve their full potential.

We are seeking a visionary and hands-on Vice President of Software Engineering to spearhead the growth and scaling of our next-generation AI-native decisioning platform, Decision Stream. This platform is engineered to drive intelligent, real-time decisions in areas like fraud detection, authentication, payments, and risk management. Operating with a startup agility and enterprise-scale ambition, Decision Stream combines cutting-edge innovation with engineering excellence to revolutionize decisioning across Mastercard's worldwide ecosystem.

As a senior technology leader, you will exemplify technical excellence, guiding engineering teams and driving critical architecture, design, and technology decisions across distributed systems, streaming technologies, AI, and cloud-native platforms. You will engage deeply with engineers, architects, and product leaders to tackle complex technical challenges and champion high standards for software quality and operational effectiveness.

Your role will involve building and scaling a highly resilient, secure, and scalable decisioning platform that operates at Mastercard's global scale. Balancing a long-term platform vision with immediate execution needs, you will drive simplicity, reliability, performance, and continuous innovation.

Furthermore, you will focus on building and nurturing high-performing teams by recruiting, mentoring, and developing exceptional engineering talent. Cultivating a culture of ownership, technical curiosity, accountability, and collaboration will be key, alongside developing strong technical leadership within your teams. You will also deliver significant business outcomes by partnering closely with Product and business stakeholders to align engineering investments with customer value, overseeing execution from concept to production, and establishing robust operational rhythms and continuous improvement practices.

A proven track record of leading software engineering teams in the development of large-scale distributed platforms is essential. A strong, hands-on technical background in cloud-native architectures, microservices, APIs, data platforms, and event-driven systems is required. You must demonstrate the ability to influence architectural direction and actively participate in technical design discussions.

We are looking for candidates with a history of successfully delivering highly available, resilient, and mission-critical systems at scale. Exceptional collaboration, communication, and leadership skills are paramount.

Preferred qualifications include experience with AI/ML platforms and intelligent decisioning systems, familiarity with technologies such as Kafka, Flink, and Kubernetes, and a background in payments, fraud, risk, or financial services. Experience in building new platforms, products, or leading transformational technology initiatives would be highly advantageous. You should operate as a builder and innovator, combining strategic thinking with hands-on technical engagement, demonstrating curiosity, ownership, and a bias for action.