Principal Software Architect

Our Purpose

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.

Title and Summary

Principal Software Architect

Overview:

Mastercard’s Security Solutions Organization is seeking a Principal Software Architect to shape and drive the strategic vision, technical architecture, and delivery of modern, scalable fraud prevention platforms and services. This is a high-impact role that requires strategic thinking, hands-on technical expertise, and strong leadership to guide multiple engineering teams, influence product and platform direction, and collaborate cross-functionally with internal and external partners.
You’ll work across teams, products, and platforms to build a future-ready architecture that accelerates time to value, elevates technical standards, and drives innovation. If you're passionate about solving complex technical challenges, enjoy mentoring engineers, and want to shape the future of Mastercard's solutions, this is the role for you.
This is a hybrid position (3x times per week onsite) based in our Mastercard technology hub in St. Louis which provides an environment for technology teams to thrive in collaborative and Agile engineering culture.

Role:

• Develop and lead a business and technical architecture strategy aligned with evolving business scenarios, goals, and metrics for long-term governance and scalability.
• Define and apply structured architectural methodologies to capture key enterprise views and ensure alignment across the organization.
• Partner with product teams, acquisitions, and third-party partners to shape product and technical roadmaps that drive innovation and business value.
• Foster strategic cross-functional relationships to accelerate delivery of impactful, scalable solutions and reduce time-to-value.
• Guide multiple engineering teams to ensure consistent architecture across platforms, with a focus on secure, performant, and reliable solutions.
• Architect, build, and deploy complex, modern technical products across distributed cloud-native environments.
• Mentor and coach engineers and leaders at all levels, cultivating ambition, growth, and technical excellence.
• Create an inclusive and high-performing team culture rooted in trust, innovation, continuous learning, and psychological safety.
• Drive engineering excellence by setting ambitious goals and instilling agile practices that enable fast iteration and informed pivots.
• Manage organizational scale-up efforts, identifying and addressing short- and long-term engineering needs to support growth.
• Identify and mitigate architectural and technical risks, collaborating across teams to proactively address challenges.
• Influence senior stakeholders by clearly communicating architectural decisions, roadmaps, and trade-offs across business units.

All About You:

• Extensive experience in software engineering, system design and architecture, with a strong record of leading enterprise-level platform and product development.
• Proven ability to define and drive technical direction and architectural decisions aligned with broader product and business goals.
• Deep understanding of system architecture principles — including scalability, reliability, and modularity — and how to apply them in real-world implementations.
• Skilled at balancing hands-on technical leadership with strategic thinking, navigating ambiguity while guiding multiple initiatives forward.
• Adept at simplifying complex technical problems and designing systems that are maintainable, performant, and adaptable to future needs.
• Experienced in scaling platforms, systems, and teams within fast-paced and evolving environments.
• Experience mentoring engineers, fostering growth, and building inclusive, high-performing teams.
• Strong understanding of Agile methodologies, with the ability to drive iterative delivery and cross-team collaboration.
• Strong communicator with the ability to explain complex concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences, and to influence stakeholders across product, engineering, and acquisition teams.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, or a related field or equivalent practical experience.

#LI-DJ2

Mastercard is a merit-based, inclusive, equal opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabled or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We hire the most qualified candidate for the role. In the US or Canada, if you require accommodations or assistance to complete the online application process or during the recruitment process, please contact reasonable_accommodation@mastercard.com and identify the type of accommodation or assistance you are requesting. Do not include any medical or health information in this email. The Reasonable Accommodations team will respond to your email promptly.

Corporate Security Responsibility

All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;

• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;

• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and

• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.

In line with Mastercard’s total compensation philosophy and assuming that the job will be performed in the US, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive base salary based on location, experience and other qualifications for the role and may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role. Mastercard benefits for full time (and certain part time) employees generally include: insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance), flexible spending account and health savings account, paid leaves (including 16 weeks new parent leave, up to 20 paid days bereavement leave), 10 annual paid sick days, 10 or more annual paid vacation days based on level, 5 personal days, 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, gender-inclusive benefits and many more.

Pay Ranges

O'Fallon, Missouri: $165,000 - $264,000 USD