Principal Software Engineer

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

About the role

We are seeking a hands-on Principal Forward Deployed Engineer to accelerate delivery across Mastercard Services. Modeled on the forward deployed engineering role that leading technology companies embed alongside their most important customers, this position turns that model inward. You will deploy into Services programs as an internal partner who writes production code, unblocks delivery, and puts AI to work in how we build.

Reporting to the SVP of Developer Enablement within the Services Enablement & Transformation (SET) organization, you will move to wherever the need is greatest, adding senior engineering capacity during critical spikes, accelerating roadmaps, and helping teams adopt modern, AI-first practices.

Responsibilities

• Embed directly into Services product and engineering teams, writing production-quality code and shipping features alongside them.
• Provide surge engineering capacity during critical delivery spikes, helping programs accelerate roadmaps and hit high-stakes milestones without permanently expanding headcount.
• Diagnose and clear technical bottlenecks across architecture, performance, integration, tooling, and delivery process.
• Fill short-term gaps with deep expertise, standing up new capabilities, and transferring them cleanly to the product team.
• Move fluidly across Services as priorities shift, scoping each engagement with program leaders and Developer Enablement so effort lands where it matters most.
• Design and deploy production-grade AI solutions such as assistants, agents, and multi-agent workflows that solve real problems inside Services programs.
• Apply modern AI engineering practices, including LLMs, RAG, and agent frameworks, along with the evaluation, observability, and governance needed to run them safely in production.
• Mature AI adoption across the software development lifecycle, including AI-assisted coding, testing, code review, and release.
• Evaluate emerging AI capabilities and turn them into reusable patterns and reference implementations that Services teams can adopt.
• Coach teams on AI-first ways of working through hands-on delivery, including pairing, prompt engineering, and agent design.
• Leave every team more self-sufficient than you found it, emphasizing documentation and knowledge transfer, so programs do not stay dependent on you.
• Carry patterns, friction points, and reusable solutions back from the field to inform Services-wide enablement, tooling, and golden paths.
• Partner with enterprise architecture, platform, and developer enablement teams so what you deliver aligns with Mastercard standards and scales beyond a single program.

Requirements

• Extensive hands-on software engineering experience with a track record of personal shipping complex, production-grade systems.
• Advanced experience overseeing containerization and orchestration architectures (Docker, Kubernetes, Service Meshes) across hyper-scale cloud environments.
• Deep, current experience building with AI and Agentic solutions, including LLMs, agent frameworks, RAG, and orchestration patterns, and a track record of deploying AI solutions that deliver measurable outcomes.
• Exceptional technical breadth, becoming productive quickly across unfamiliar languages, frameworks, domains, and codebases.
• Deep fluency in modern development practices, including CI/CD, automation, cloud-native architecture, testing, and developer tooling.
• Practical, current command of AI across the software development lifecycle, and the ability to coach engineering teams in adopting it effectively.
• A working grasp of responsible AI, governance, and production monitoring for AI systems.
• A proven ability to parachute into unfamiliar teams, build trust fast, and deliver measurable outcomes under time pressure.
• A pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset that prioritizes shipping, working software and teaching by doing.
• Strong communication and influencing skills that earn credibility with engineers and program leaders alike.
• Comfort with ambiguity, frequent context-switching, and self-directed scoping where you can add the most value.
• Hands-on experience with GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Copilot Studio, Azure AI, or equivalent AI development platform preferred.
• Demonstrated passion for simplification, innovation, and enabling speed and quality across the organization.

Benefits

• Insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, 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, pro-rated based on date of hire.
• 10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays.
• 401k with a best-in-class company match.
• Deferred compensation for eligible roles.
• Fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities.
• Eligibility for tuition reimbursement.

Pay

O'Fallon, Missouri: $170,000 - $281,000 USD