Senior Software Engineer

Location: Arlington, Virginia

Time Type: Full time

Job Description

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

Senior Software Engineer

Overview:
Mastercard’s Economic Intelligence team is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and operate scalable data systems that power our economic intelligence products. This is a hands-on engineering role focused on delivering complex platform capabilities, modernizing data workloads from on-premises Hadoop technologies to Databricks and cloud-based services, and strengthening engineering practices across the team.
The Economic Intelligence team develops data products and analytical capabilities that help customers understand consumer spending, evaluate economic conditions, and make informed business decisions. We transform billions of global transaction records into trusted insights used by clients across financial services, retail, and government.
You will collaborate with software engineers, data engineers, data scientists, product managers, and data warehouse teams across multiple locations.
This is a hybrid role based in Arlington, VA, requiring three days per week onsite.

Role:
• Design, develop, test, and operate scalable data-processing solutions using Python, SQL, Spark, Hive, Impala, Databricks, and related technologies.
• Own complex data platform capabilities from ingestion and transformation through publishing and consumption.
• Provide technical leadership for the modernization of on-premises data workloads to Databricks and cloud-based platforms.
• Make and document architecture and design decisions that improve scalability, reliability, maintainability, security, and cost efficiency.
• Build production-ready pipelines with appropriate testing, data-quality controls, observability, operational documentation, and recovery procedures.
• Diagnose and resolve complex performance, reliability, and data-quality issues across distributed systems.
• Contribute directly to implementation while guiding technical execution through design reviews, code reviews, and collaborative problem-solving.
• Reduce technical debt by balancing near-term product delivery with long-term platform sustainability.
• Partner with product managers and data scientists to translate business and analytical requirements into clear, durable technical solutions.
• Mentor engineers, share technical knowledge, and help strengthen engineering practices across geographically distributed teams.
• Evaluate new tools and approaches based on measurable improvements to delivery speed, platform reliability, developer productivity, or analytical capability.
• Participate in production support and continuous improvement of the systems owned by the team.

All About You:
• Experience modernizing workloads from Hadoop-based environments to cloud or Databricks platforms.
• Experience with Hive, Impala, workflow orchestration, data Lakehouse patterns, or cloud object storage.
• Advanced SQL expertise, including query optimization and modeling for very large datasets.
• Knowledge of data governance, privacy, security, data lineage, and access-control practices.
• Experience supporting analytical, economic, financial, or other data-intensive products.
• Experience applying machine learning, generative AI, or agent-based capabilities within production systems.
• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing architecture or engineering standards across teams.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, capable of explaining complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related STEM discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

This role is not eligible for Mastercard’s work authorization sponsorship. As such, candidates must be eligible to work in the United States now or in the future without employer sponsorship.

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 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. THIS POSTING RELECTS ONE OR MORE CURRENT VACANCIES ON OUR TEAM, AND MASTERCARD INTENDS TO FILL THIS POSITION BY 01/17/2027. If the fill date has passed, Mastercard intends to fill this position as soon as possible.

Pay Ranges

Arlington, Virginia: $132,000 - $212,000 USD