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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Lead Software Engineer (Architect) - **Company:** Mastercard - **Location:** O'Fallon, MO, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Java (Programming Language), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Amazon Web Services, User Authentication, Authentication Protocols, Microsoft Azure, Biometrics, Cloud Engineering, Code Review, Cyber Security, Continuous Integration, Data Structures, Disaster Recovery, Distributed Systems, Payment Systems, Fraud Prevention and Detection, Key Management, NoSQL, Payment Gateway, Reliability Engineering, Secure Coding, Software Engineering, Openapi, SSL Certificate Management, Transport Layer Security, Google Cloud, Enterprise Software Applications, Spring-boot, Technical Debt, Event Driven Architecture, Containerization, Integration Tests, Information Technology, Low Latency, Apache Kafka, Api Design, Restful APIs, Domain Driven Design, Network Server, Devsecops, Microservices - **Published:** October 22, 2026 - **Apply:** https://mastercard.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CorporateCareers/job/OFallon-Missouri/Lead-Software-Engineer--Architect-_R-293394-1 ## About the Role * Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related discipline. * 15+ years of software engineering experience, including significant technical leadership responsibilities. * Proven experience designing and delivering large-scale distributed enterprise applications and platforms. * Strong cloud engineering experience across Azure, AWS, GCP or equivalent platforms, including containerization. * Hands-on development experience with Java and Spring Boot. * Deep expertise in microservices, REST APIs, OpenAPI specifications, API-first design, event-driven architectures and distributed systems. * Experience building high-volume, low-latency transactional applications. * Advanced experience with software design and development, code review, testing, troubleshooting and production support. * Strong understanding of data structures, relational and NoSQL databases, performance engineering, observability and secure coding practices. EMV 3DS & Payments Expertise * Deep knowledge of the EMV 3-D Secure ecosystem and authentication flows. * Experience with 3DS Servers, Directory Servers, Access Control Servers, authentication services, tokenization platforms, payment gateways or card-payment processing systems. * Strong understanding of digital identity, authentication protocols, fraud prevention, payment participants and transaction lifecycles. * Understanding of regulations affecting digital authentication and payments. Leadership Competencies * Strong technical problem-solving, strategic thinking, communication and stakeholder-management skills. * Ability to translate complex technical concepts into business outcomes. * Proven experience mentoring engineers and working across globally distributed teams., * Experience developing or supporting a commercial EMV 3DS Server platform and EMVCo certification/compliance. * Knowledge of Mastercard Authentication products and services. * Experience supporting high-volume payment platforms. * Knowledge of PSD2 SCA and related authentication regulations. * Experience with tokenization, digital credentials or identity verification. * Familiarity with biometrics, FIDO2, passkeys, Kafka, SRE, DevSecOps and CI/CD. ## Description We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Software Engineer (Architect) to provide technical leadership and help define and drive the long-term architecture and technology strategy of the Smart Interface platform. The successful candidate will combine deep software engineering and architectural expertise, EMV 3DS domain knowledge, and hands-on technical leadership to drive the design, development, and evolution of Mastercard's next-generation authentication platform. Role Software Engineering & Technical Leadership * Lead the design, development and evolution of Smart Interface. * Translate business, product and technical requirements into scalable, maintainable and secure solutions. * Provide hands-on leadership across design, development, testing, deployment, production readiness and support. * Own and evolve platform architecture and contribute to technical roadmaps aligned with business and product strategy. * Guide engineers through complex technical decisions and lead code and design reviews. * Design highly available, low-latency transaction systems and cloud-native distributed applications using microservices, APIs and event-driven architectures. * Define integration and API standards and lead modernization initiatives that improve scalability, performance and maintainability. * Apply software design, architecture, Domain-Driven Design and data-structure principles to distributed systems. * Develop reusable components, frameworks and engineering patterns. * Apply secure coding, encryption, authentication, TLS/mTLS, certificate management and secrets management practices. * Design for resilience using fault isolation, retry strategies, disaster recovery and multi-region deployment. * Promote unit, functional and integration testing, performance engineering, observability and production diagnostics. * Troubleshoot complex issues, perform root-cause analysis and address technical debt and engineering risks. EMV 3DS Domain Leadership * Serve as a technical lead for Mastercard's 3DS Server platform. * Lead development of EMV 3DS capabilities supporting current and future EMVCo standards. * Drive adoption of emerging authentication technologies and ensure interoperability across merchants, gateways, acquirers, Directory Servers and ACS providers. * Partner with product, engineering, architecture and standards teams to evolve authentication capabilities. Leadership & Influence * Mentor engineers and technical leads in software design, development and engineering practices. * Communicate technical decisions, trade-offs and recommendations to engineering, product and business stakeholders. * Influence technical direction without direct authority and foster collaboration and continuous improvement., * Deliver scalable, resilient, secure and maintainable solutions while improving quality, performance and operability. * Drive architectural consistency, simplify integrations and accelerate delivery through reusable components and standards. * Mentor engineers and help evolve Mastercard authentication technologies. Corporate Security Responsibility All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information and networks carry inherent risk. Every person working for or on behalf of Mastercard must: * Follow Mastercard security policies and practices. * Protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information assets. * Report suspected security incidents or violations. * Complete required security and compliance training. * Support Mastercard's commitment to secure, resilient and trusted payment solutions., 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.