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

This is a hands-on technical leadership role for an experienced engineer who combines strong software engineering and test automation expertise with the ability to drive quality strategy across teams. You will lead quality initiatives, influence engineering practices, and help teams deliver reliable, scalable, and production-ready software.

You will work closely with software engineers, product managers, and other engineering teams to embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle while contributing directly to design, implementation, and automation.

HOW WILL YOU WORK

You will serve as the quality and test automation lead within one or more feature teams, partnering with engineers throughout the software development lifecycle.

For each initiative, you will:

Drive quality strategy and test approach from design through production

Identify quality risks, dependencies, and release concerns early in the development process

Collaborate with engineers to improve testability, observability, and automation coverage

Lead root cause analysis of complex issues and drive long-term improvements

Design scalable automation solutions that support sustainable delivery

Mentor engineers and promote quality engineering best practices across teams

While remaining hands-on, you will also influence broader engineering standards and continuously improve how quality is delivered across the organization.

WHAT WILL YOU DO

Lead quality engineering efforts for major initiatives and business-critical features

Define and drive test automation strategy across multiple applications and services

Design, develop, and maintain automated test frameworks in Java

Establish quality standards, test practices, and release readiness criteria

Partner with engineering teams to improve development workflows, shift-left testing, and automation adoption

Drive improvements in CI/CD pipelines, deployment confidence, and release quality

Analyze production issues and lead quality improvement initiatives

Mentor and coach engineers in testing, automation, and quality engineering practices

Influence technical decisions and contribute to architecture discussions with a focus on reliability, scalability, and quality

WHAT YOU BRING

Significant experience in software engineering, test automation, or software development in test

Strong Java development skills with experience building automation frameworks and engineering solutions

Experience testing APIs, UI applications, distributed systems, and cloud-native services

Deep understanding of software quality practices, test strategy, and risk-based testing

Experience leading quality initiatives across multiple teams or complex projects

Strong knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, and modern software delivery

Ability to influence technical direction and drive improvements without direct authority

Strong communication and collaboration skills with engineers, product managers, and stakeholders

NICE TO HAVE

Experience with cloud platforms and microservices architectures

Experience defining engineering standards and automation strategies at scale

Experience mentoring engineers and leading technical communities of practice

Familiarity with developer platforms, API ecosystems, or developer experience tooling

Experience with performance, reliability, and observability testing

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.