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

Who is Mastercard?
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential.

Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Overview
The Event Framework team is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to design and implement large-scale, highly resilient distributed systems built on reactive and event‑driven architectures. This role involves active participation in design discussions, producing high‑quality code, and influencing architectural direction.
The ideal candidate is motivated, intellectually curious, and passionate about solving complex engineering challenges—while leveraging modern AI development tools to accelerate delivery and improve quality.

Role Responsibilities
• Design and implement large-scale, highly resilient distributed systems using event‑driven and reactive architectures.
• Write, enhance, and maintain applications/services; perform code reviews; and follow engineering best practices to deliver production‑ready software.
• Partner closely with product teams to drive prioritization decisions, evaluate trade‑offs, and shape technical direction.
• Automate and streamline all aspects of software development, testing, deployment, and monitoring.
• Explore and introduce emerging technologies and architectural approaches by running POCs aligned with enterprise guidelines.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers, including guidance on coding patterns, design principles, and effective use of AI-assisted tooling.

All About You — Skills & Qualifications
• Proven track record of delivering production‑grade, large‑scale distributed systems.
• Strong programming experience in modern languages. Preferred: Java, Spring Boot, Go.
• Experience using AI coding assistants to improve development speed, code quality, test generation, and documentation.
• Familiarity with secure coding standards and the ability to apply them consistently.
• Solid understanding of advanced software design patterns and the ability to apply them appropriately.
• Working knowledge of operating system internals (Windows, Linux) to write robust, performant, and interoperable code.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms such as AWS and/or Azure.
Experience with event-driven architectures, reactive systems, and messaging/broker technologies (e.g., Kafka, NATS) is a strong plus.

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 Canada, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive pay based on location, experience and other qualifications for the role and may be eligible to participate in a discretionary annual incentive program.

Pay Ranges

Vancouver, Canada: $127,000 - $203,000 CAD