Senior Site Reliability Engineer, Performance Engineering

About the role

The Senior Site Reliability Engineer, Performance Engineering, Payment Optimization role at Mastercard is focused on optimizing and scaling the Automatic Billing Updater (ABU) service. ABU helps reduce preventable card-not-present transaction declines by keeping credential-on-file and recurring payment information current throughout the issuer-cardholder relationship.

Responsibilities

• Partner with site reliability engineers and performance engineers to test and tune ABU services before production release through automated test suites, system design consulting, bottleneck analysis, chaos testing, capacity planning, and launch reviews.
• Build, manage, and maintain robust performance testing suites.
• Measure and monitor availability, latency, throughput, performance, and overall system health; communicate test results and recommendations clearly.
• Scale systems sustainably through automation and recommend changes that improve reliability, velocity, and performance.
• Review production incidents, identify contributing factors, and drive solutions that reduce recurrence.
• Manage project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables independently.
• Approach work with an automation mindset and automate repeatable tasks wherever practical.
• Apply deep technical expertise to coach and mentor technical talent.

Requirements

• Use AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate performance test script generation, test data preparation, log analysis, anomaly detection, and repetitive automation while validating outputs through sound engineering review.
• Apply data-driven analysis, observability insights, and automation patterns to identify performance trends, isolate bottlenecks, and recommend measurable improvements to scalability and reliability.
• Education (preferred): Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Systems, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Advanced knowledge of web applications and distributed systems infrastructure.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills for audiences with varying levels of technical acumen.
• Experience with performance bottleneck analysis and system design for scale.
• Experience with Java Virtual Machine internals and garbage collection tuning.
• Experience with one or more of the following: database internals, server or operating system internals, storage system internals, or performance scaling for related platforms.
• Experience implementing automated performance regression test suites for low-latency, high-throughput financial applications.
• Experience analyzing performance bottlenecks across application code, databases, cache layers, data stores, servers, networks, messaging queues, and streaming platforms.
• Experience analyzing issues holistically, from edge components through application tiers and databases.
• Experience working directly with internal customers, resolving issues and providing performance engineering leadership.
• Working knowledge of AI-assisted development and analysis techniques, including prompt-driven script generation, automation workflow creation, test result summarization, and root cause analysis support.

Preferred

• Experience with Java, Python, Scala, or other programming and scripting languages.
• Experience with Bitbucket, Maven, Jenkins, Gatling, and BlazeMeter.
• Experience migrating legacy on-premises testing suites to cloud-native stacks.
• Experience migrating performance testing suites from LoadRunner to Gatling or BlazeMeter.
• Strong software performance analysis, bottleneck identification, scaling, and automation experience.
• Experience using AI-enabled tools or large language models to generate, refactor, explain, or optimize performance testing scripts, automation utilities, and troubleshooting workflows.
• Experience applying AI-assisted analysis to performance metrics, logs, traces, dashboards, and incident data to identify patterns, summarize findings, and support faster remediation.
• Familiarity with responsible AI practices, including validation of AI-generated outputs, protection of sensitive data, and alignment with enterprise security and compliance expectations.

Skills/Abilities

• Displays initiative and ownership.
• Detail-oriented and customer-focused.
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize efforts.
• Ability to learn new technologies quickly and apply them effectively.
• Ability to leverage AI and automation tools responsibly to improve productivity, analysis quality, and consistency while maintaining sound engineering judgment.
• Strong analytical mindset with the ability to translate performance data, AI-assisted insights, and operational signals into clear recommendations.
• Ability to work effectively with team members across multiple geographies.
• Excellent collaboration skills with cross-functional teams.
• Ability to provide positive, professional support to internal and external business partners.

Benefits

Mastercard offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes:

• 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
• and many more.

Pay Range

O'Fallon, Missouri: $96,000 - $163,000 USD