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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal Software Engineer - **Company:** Mastercard - **Location:** O'Fallon, MO, United States - **Salary:** $170,000.0 - $281,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Java (Programming Language), Application Frameworks, User Authentication, Cloud Engineering, Software Quality, Cyber Security, Continuous Integration, Software Design Patterns, Disaster Recovery, Distributed Systems, Fault Tolerance, Enterprise Messaging Systems, Software Engineering, Transaction Processing (Computing), Enterprise Software Applications, Cloud Platform System, Spring-boot, HybridCloud, Event Driven Architecture, Kubernetes, Information Technology, Apache Kafka, Restful APIs, Domain Driven Design, Grpc, Docker, Microservices - **Published:** September 25, 2026 - **Apply:** https://mastercard.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CorporateCareers/job/OFallon-Missouri/Principal-Software-Engineer_R-289407-1 ## About the Role Technical Expertise * Recognized technical expert with a proven track record leading large-scale software engineering initiatives. * Deep expertise in distributed systems architecture, microservices, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), and enterprise application development. * Advanced experience designing highly available, fault-tolerant, and globally distributed systems. * Strong hands-on experience with Java, Spring Boot, REST APIs, gRPC, and modern application frameworks. * Experience building cloud-native platforms utilizing Kubernetes, Docker, and enterprise cloud technologies. * Expertise with event-driven architectures and messaging technologies such as Kafka, NATS, and MQ. * Strong understanding of performance engineering, system scalability, reliability patterns, and resiliency design. * Experience implementing secure software development practices and enterprise-grade security controls. * Deep understanding of observability, monitoring, incident management, disaster recovery, and operational excellence. Leadership & Collaboration * Proven ability to lead large, complex engineering efforts involving multiple teams, stakeholders, and business functions. * Skilled at driving consensus and influencing technical decisions without direct authority. * Highly regarded mentor and advisor with a demonstrated commitment to developing engineering talent. * Excellent communicator capable of translating complex technical concepts for engineering, business, and executive audiences. * Maintains awareness of emerging technologies, industry trends, and engineering best practices, applying them to create business value., Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical field. Experience within payments, fintech, digital identity, authentication, or high-scale transaction processing environments is strongly preferred. ## Description As a Principal Software Engineer, you serve as a distinguished technical leader responsible for shaping the architecture, engineering strategy, and long-term technical direction of critical authentication platforms. You drive solutions to complex business and technical challenges, influence engineering decisions across multiple teams, and establish standards that improve the scalability, resiliency, security, and operational excellence of Mastercard's authentication ecosystem. This role requires deep technical expertise, exceptional system design skills, and the ability to lead through influence while mentoring engineers and advancing engineering excellence across the organization. Consistent with Principal SDE expectations, you are recognized as a technical authority, a trusted advisor, and a driver of innovation across large-scale initiatives., Technical Leadership & Architecture * Define and drive the long-term technical vision for critical authentication and identity platforms. * Lead the architecture and design of highly scalable, resilient, distributed systems supporting global payment authentication services. * Establish engineering standards, reference architectures, design patterns, and best practices across multiple product and platform teams. * Make strategic technology decisions balancing performance, resiliency, security, maintainability, operational excellence, and speed to market. * Identify and solve complex technical challenges that span organizational and architectural boundaries. * Drive architectural evolution toward cloud-native, event-driven, and service-oriented solutions. Engineering Excellence * Maintain meaningful hands-on involvement while leading large technical initiatives and critical architectural efforts. * Champion high-quality software engineering practices, code quality, automation, observability, and operational readiness. * Lead design reviews for major programs and provide guidance on technical tradeoffs, risk mitigation, and implementation approaches. * Ensure solutions are built with reliability, compliance, security, and scalability as foundational principles. * Drive adoption of modern engineering practices including CI/CD, automation-first operations, and resilience engineering. Organizational Influence * Influence technical direction across multiple teams and business initiatives. * Partner closely with Product, Architecture, Security, Engineering, SRE, and Operational leaders to align technology strategy with business objectives. * Serve as a trusted advisor for large-scale programs and enterprise-level initiatives. * Foster collaboration across teams and drive consensus on complex technical decisions. * Represent engineering strategy and architectural recommendations to senior leadership and executive stakeholders. Mentorship & Talent Development * Provide technical mentorship to senior engineers, lead engineers, and engineering leaders. * Raise engineering capability across the organization through coaching, design guidance, and technical leadership. * Promote a culture of innovation, collaboration, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence. * Contribute significantly to onboarding, knowledge sharing, and development of technical talent., 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. ## Related Videos - [Exploring the Power of gRPC-Gateway for Writing RESTful Services](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/2072-exploring-the-power-of-grpc-gateway-for-writing-restful-services) - [Docker Compose: Rediscovered](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1978-docker-compose-rediscovered) - [Understanding Kubernetes in a visual way](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100085-understanding-kubernetes-in-a-visual-way) - [Next Level Enterprise Architecture: Modular, Flexible, Scalable, Multichannel and AI-Ready?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1017-next-level-enterprise-architecture-modular-flexible-scalable-multichannel-and-ai-ready) - [Microservices: how to get started with Spring Boot and Kubernetes](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/242-microservices-how-to-get-started-with-spring-boot-and-kubernetes) - [Boosting OpenSearch Performance: gRPC Search in Action](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1964-boosting-opensearch-performance-grpc-search-in-action) ## Related Articles - [Highest Paying Tech Companies in Europe](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/162-highest-paying-tech-companies-in-europe) - [The Best X (Twitter) Accounts for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/294-the-best-x-twitter-accounts-for-developers) - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [What’s the Difference between a Junior, Mid, and Senior Developer?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/238-what-s-the-difference-between-a-junior-mid-and-senior-developer) - [Best Countries for Software Engineers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/267-best-countries-for-software-engineers) - [Top-Paying Tech Jobs (with Salaries)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/372-top-paying-tech-jobs-with-salaries)