Principal Software Engineer at MasterCard
First seen by Alion on Oct 20, 2026. Mastercard scores A on the Alion truth index.
About Mastercard
Mastercard is a global technology company specializing in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and empower an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by ensuring transactions are safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Utilizing secure data and networks, strategic partnerships, and passion, our innovations and solutions support individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses in realizing their greatest potential.
Overview
Mastercard is looking for a talented Principal Software Engineer to join the Mastercard Foundry Research and Development team in our Nairobi office. In this role you will be part of a highly agile, AI native development team building innovative large-scale software platforms and solutions from ideation to release. Our team is built on a foundation of research and development, mining innovation internally, innovating new product lines with emerging technology, managing new products from inception to market validation and engaging strategically with start-ups to shape the future of commerce with and for our customers.
At Mastercard you will help define the future of commerce globally. As an architect on the R&D team, you will be at the forefront of the design of complex, large-scale data-oriented new product concepts. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who is deeply engaged in using Generative and Agentic AI through the full product development lifecycle. You will work on lean, high-performance pods to architect software solutions to rapidly evolving product concepts which heavily leverage Mastercard and other datasets. The team will rapidly experiment with and iterate on AI native ways of working.
About the Role
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will:
- Lead the architecture & design of software systems and applications
- Influence architecture decisions across multiple teams
- Collaborate with product teams to understand requirements, identify solutions, and provide technical thought leadership
- Ensure solutions meet corporate security standards and adhere to operability principles
- Drive a culture of engineering excellence
- Build great relationships with technical peers across the organization
All About You
- Broad experience as a Software Engineer / Full Stack Developer
- Working experience across a variety of languages and frameworks
- Experience designing distributed, mission-critical, highly available systems supporting millions of transactions daily
- Deep understanding of resiliency, fault tolerance and scalability patterns
- In depth knowledge of Public Cloud platforms, containers and container orchestration
- Hands-on technical leader who consistently demonstrates leadership, builds trust, develops talent and inspires the team
- High-energy, detail-oriented and proactive with the ability to function under pressure with minimal supervision
- Have a passion for continuous learning and enjoy challenging opportunities
- Strong communication skills – both verbal and written – with strong relationship building, collaborative skills and organizational skills
- Drives outcomes through strong commitment to timely delivery of key objectives
- Demonstrates strong decision-making skills
Required Experience
- Experience in software engineering within enterprise-scale environments
- Experience providing technical leadership, architecture guidance, or principal engineering contributions
- Demonstrated success designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems and leading complex engineering initiatives across multiple teams
- Proven track record designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems
- Experience leading complex engineering initiatives across multiple teams
About Mastercard
Mastercard is a global technology company specializing in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and empower an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by ensuring transactions are safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Utilizing secure data and networks, strategic partnerships, and passion, our innovations and solutions support individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses in realizing their greatest potential.
Overview
Mastercard is looking for a talented Principal Software Engineer to join the Mastercard Foundry Research and Development team in our Nairobi office. In this role you will be part of a highly agile, AI native development team building innovative large-scale software platforms and solutions from ideation to release. Our team is built on a foundation of research and development, mining innovation internally, innovating new product lines with emerging technology, managing new products from inception to market validation and engaging strategically with start-ups to shape the future of commerce with and for our customers.
At Mastercard you will help define the future of commerce globally. As an architect on the R&D team, you will be at the forefront of the design of complex, large-scale data-oriented new product concepts. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who is deeply engaged in using Generative and Agentic AI through the full product development lifecycle. You will work on lean, high-performance pods to architect software solutions to rapidly evolving product concepts which heavily leverage Mastercard and other datasets. The team will rapidly experiment with and iterate on AI native ways of working.
About the Role
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will:
- Lead the architecture & design of software systems and applications
- Influence architecture decisions across multiple teams
- Collaborate with product teams to understand requirements, identify solutions, and provide technical thought leadership
- Ensure solutions meet corporate security standards and adhere to operability principles
- Drive a culture of engineering excellence
- Build great relationships with technical peers across the organization
All About You
- Broad experience as a Software Engineer / Full Stack Developer
- Working experience across a variety of languages and frameworks
- Experience designing distributed, mission-critical, highly available systems supporting millions of transactions daily
- Deep understanding of resiliency, fault tolerance and scalability patterns
- In depth knowledge of Public Cloud platforms, containers and container orchestration
- Hands-on technical leader who consistently demonstrates leadership, builds trust, develops talent and inspires the team
- High-energy, detail-oriented and proactive with the ability to function under pressure with minimal supervision
- Have a passion for continuous learning and enjoy challenging opportunities
- Strong communication skills – both verbal and written – with strong relationship building, collaborative skills and organizational skills
- Drives outcomes through strong commitment to timely delivery of key objectives
- Demonstrates strong decision-making skills
Required Experience
- Experience in software engineering within enterprise-scale environments
- Experience providing technical leadership, architecture guidance, or principal engineering contributions
- Demonstrated success designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems and leading complex engineering initiatives across multiple teams
- Proven track record designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems
- Experience leading complex engineering initiatives across multiple teams