Lead Software Engineer

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 Lead Software Engineer Overview: The Mastercard Developer Workbench, part of the MSBX (Mastercard Software Builder Experience) division, is evolving from a cost-allocation construct into a unified, developer-centric platform. With over 11,500 software engineers across the organization, Mastercard is investing in a dedicated product team to deliver an integrated, end-to-end developer experience. The Developer Workbench brings together five core MSBX products — BuildersHub, DevFlow, TestFlow, DevInsights, and Cloud DevEx — alongside cross-cutting tools including GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Docker Desktop. This is a rare opportunity to shape the future of how engineers at one of the world's leading technology companies build, test, and ship software. About the Role: - Serve as a technical anchor on the team — setting the bar for engineering quality, driving architectural decisions, and providing hands-on guidance to fellow engineers across the platform. - Design, build, and maintain core components of the Developer Workbench platform across the full development lifecycle, while actively supporting teammates in doing the same. - Lead the technical direction and roadmap of the Developer Workbench, driving its evolution from a chargeback mechanism into a cohesive, productized developer experience — and bringing the engineering team along through clear technical reasoning and collaborative decision-making. - Own and advance the integration of software engineering tools across the development lifecycle, establishing patterns and practices the team can build on consistently. - Lead the governance of the "birthright and optional tooling" catalogue — driving version lifecycle management, tool evaluations, and deprecation of redundant solutions in close coordination with engineering stakeholders. - Partner with product owners, platform teams, and engineering stakeholders to align workbench capabilities with organization-wide engineering priorities, acting as a technical voice in cross-functional discussions. - Lead the design and delivery of developer enablement features — onboarding flows, self-service tooling, feedback integrations — and help the broader team understand and extend these systems effectively. - Architect and oversee the implementation of pre-provisioned onboarding environments that enable new hires to be productive within 30 minutes of day one. - Drive the adoption and advancement of AI-augmented development capabilities including agentic coding tools, code assistants, and automated quality pipelines — acting as a technical authority and enabler for the team. - Define and champion meaningful instrumentation and metrics that surface developer productivity, satisfaction, and platform health across the organization. - Engage across engineering, security, and compliance teams to ensure tooling implementations meet Mastercard's security and regulatory requirements, and help teammates navigate those constraints effectively. - Actively contribute to and help lead the Software Engineering Guild — sharing deep technical expertise, elevating engineering standards, and mentoring engineers across the organization. All About You: - Proven track record as a technical leader among peers — known for raising the quality of the work around you through code reviews, design feedback, pairing, and shared ownership rather than through authority. - Strong background in software engineering, including hands-on work on platform engineering, developer tooling, or developer experience (DevEx) products at enterprise scale. - Demonstrated ability to decompose complex technical problems, communicate tradeoffs clearly to engineers at varying levels, and build shared understanding across a team. - Deep familiarity with the modern developer tooling ecosystem, including: - AI coding assistants: GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or similar - Containerization and desktop dev environments: Docker Desktop, Kubernetes, DevContainers - CI/CD and pipeline tooling: GitHub Actions, Jenkins, ArgoCD, or similar - Developer portals and inner-source platforms: Backstage, or similar - Experience working with AI-powered developer tools in a regulated enterprise environment, including a strong understanding of policy compliance, access controls, and responsible AI usage. - Deep command of developer experience (DevEx) principles and the ability to translate developer pain points into durable platform improvements — and to coach others in doing the same. - Experience designing and delivering pre-provisioned, standardized development environments at scale, with an ability to guide teammates through the tradeoffs involved. - Strong grasp of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), infrastructure automation, and cloud-native development patterns. - Comfortable driving adoption through instrumentation, metrics, and feedback mechanisms — and helping others instrument their own work meaningfully. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to facilitate technical alignment across engineering teams and articulate complex concepts to non-engineering stakeholders. - Fluent with software development productivity metrics (e.g., DORA metrics, onboarding time, tool adoption rates) and experienced at using data to steer technical decisions collaboratively. - Self-driven and effective in ambiguous, fast-evolving technology environments — able to unblock yourself and others without waiting for full clarity. - Strong co