This role pays more than
82%
of similar roles. Most pay
$147,500–$208,800
— the shaded band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$214k
versus about
$178k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Mastercard
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry, processing transactions between financial institutions and merchants using its extensive network of credit, debit, and prepaid card products. Industry: Payments Technology & Financial Services
Mastercard currently has
130 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$115,000–$185,500
across 116 roles with salary data.
As a Lead Software Engineer, you will join the team responsible for building backend and full-stack capabilities for the next-generation Decision Management Platform. This real-time system is designed to score and approve billions of payment transactions. You will own technical areas end to end, translating ambiguous goals into reliable services, APIs, workflow tools, and user-facing experiences while mentoring engineers through code reviews and design sessions. The role requires expertise in high-throughput, low-latency, event-driven, or distributed systems, as well as experience with AI/ML systems, LLM-enabled applications, agentic harnesses, and AI-assisted development workflows. You will utilize skills in API design, data modeling, and secure coding to solve complex problems in the payment industry. Key technical focuses include transaction processing, feature platforms, and building scalable infrastructure for real-time decisioning environments.
Own backend and full-stack capabilities from initial problem definition through design, implementation, testing, and production support.
Design and build scalable services, APIs, workflow tools, and user-facing frontend experiences.
Set technical direction and make pragmatic architecture decisions to ensure maintainable solutions.
Conduct design and code reviews to improve engineering quality and reduce system complexity.
Write code and develop prototypes using AI coding tools to increase team speed and effectiveness.
Translate ambiguous goals from stakeholders into reliable software, APIs, and measurable outcomes.
Develop high-throughput, low-latency systems for real-time transaction processing and AI/ML inference.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
Strong hands-on software engineering experience building backend services, APIs, full-stack applications, or complex production systems.
Experience owning technical areas end to end, including design, implementation, testing, deployment, and production support.
Strong fundamentals in software design, architecture, API design, data modeling, testing, code review, secure coding, performance, and troubleshooting.
Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction through design reviews, code reviews, and clear communication.
Experience with high-throughput, low-latency, event-driven, or distributed systems (preferred).
Experience with AI/ML systems, low-latency inference, or LLM-enabled product experiences (preferred).
Experience with AI-assisted development and agentic harnesses (preferred).