Our PurposeMastercard 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 SummaryDirector of Engineering
1. Company Overview (About Us)
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments, and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. We are committed to building a sustainable, inclusive digital economy where every transaction is safe, simple, and smart, and where innovation moves with speed and responsibility.
Mastercard Checkout Services (MACS) powers the digital commerce backbone for millions of consumers and merchants. We enable secure card-on-file transactions, Click to Pay experiences, authentication flows, and the next wave of global digital checkout capabilities. As digital commerce rapidly evolves, MACS is undergoing a high-visibility transformation to become a unified, modern, resilient global platform.
2. Position Overview (What This Role Is & Why Join Us?)
We are looking for a world-class Director of Architecture to lead architecture for Mastercard Checkout Services - one of Mastercard's most strategic and technically complex platforms.
This is a rare opportunity to help define how digital checkout works globally for the next decade. You will set the architectural direction, drive modernization, influence cross-organizational decisions, and guide a team of highly skilled architects through deep technical and strategic challenges.
Join us if you want to:
Shape the north-star architecture of a global-scale platform.
Solve complex challenges around security, resilience, performance, multi-system interactions, and long-term sustainability.
Play a central leadership role in Mastercard's digital commerce evolution.
Build and mentor a high-caliber architecture team that partners deeply with Product, Engineering, SRE, Security, and the global Architecture & Technology group.
This role is for leaders who thrive on complexity, scale, ambiguity, and impact - and who want their work to matter across the entire digital ecosystem.
3. Key Responsibilities (What We Expect You To Do)
Architectural Vision & Strategy
Define and evolve the MACS north-star architecture and multi-year technical roadmap.
Translate business objectives into cohesive architectural themes and platform strategies.
Drive modernization across cloud-native patterns, resilience, eventing, API evolution, and platform unification.
Design Governance & Technical Leadership
Lead architecture governance including Budgetary Guidance, high-level design reviews, architectural quality gates, and cross-platform alignment.
Establish rigorous standards, principles, and reusable reference patterns that raise overall design quality.
Ensure all solutions meet Mastercard's expectations for security, compliance, availability, performance, and operability.
Platform Health & Technical Excellence
Champion the long-term health of the MACS platform by proactively identifying systemic risks, single points of failure, and technical debt.
Evaluate emerging technologies and guide strategic technology investments.
Partner with Security, SRE, and Infrastructure to strengthen resilience, observability, and operational readiness.
Cross-Functional Influence & Collaboration
Work closely with Product, TPM, and Engineering leaders to align roadmaps, ensure clarity of scope, and support delivery planning.
Influence senior leadership on architecture trade-offs, risk posture, and long-term technical decisions.
Represent MACS architecture in Mastercard's global Architecture & Technology councils and strategic forums.
Leadership & Talent Development
Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing architecture team covering multiple technical specialties.
Foster a culture of innovation, technical depth, accountability, and proactive problem-solving.
Build career ladders, strengthen architectural judgment, and elevate technical maturity across teams.
4. Required Qualifications & Skills (What You Must Bring)
Core Qualifications
15+ years of experience in software engineering and architecture, including leadership roles on complex, mission-critical platforms.
Deep expertise in distributed systems, microservices, APIs, event-driven architectures, and cloud-native technologies.
Strong grounding in security, secure SDLC, PCI considerations, and compliance-driven architecture.
Proven experience driving large-scale modernization initiatives and setting long-term technical direction.
Exceptional communication, executive presence, and ability to simplify complex technical topics for senior stakeholders.
Demonstrated success in leading and developing senior architects, principal engineers, or technical leaders.
Preferred Skills
Experience with fintech, digital payments, authentication, or identity systems.
Background in high-scale transaction platforms or federated architectural environments.
Familiarity with reliability engineering, observability platforms, and operational excellence practices.
Prior leadership in an organization undergoing significant platform evolution or transformation.
5. What now?
If you are motivated by big problems, big platforms, and big impact, this role offers the opportunity to shape the architectural foundation of Mastercard's global digital commerce offerings. You will influence strategy, guide world-class engineers and architects, and leave a lasting mark on how billions of people experience secure digital payments.
Join us - and help build the future of digital checkout.
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 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 ResponsibilityAll 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 and may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role. The base salary offered may vary depending on multiple factors, including but not limited to location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. 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 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. Mastercard benefits for interns generally include: 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time; jury duty leave; and on-site fitness facilities in some locations.
Pay RangesNew York City, New York: $204,000 - $337,000 USD
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