Director, Software Engineering

Careers.mastercard.com

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Dublin 18, Ireland Until 9/20/2026 12+ years exp First posted June 17, 2026 Last posted July 22, 2026
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

Director, Software Engineering

About 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.

Role Summary

Lead Quality Engineering as a strategic function across all CNPF products and platforms. Build and lead a global team of quality engineers
obsessively focused on customer experience and product reliability — operating across the full stack (frontend, backend, APIs, data pipelines,
AI/ML, infrastructure). Define QE strategy and ensure its execution at pace.

The role is responsible for designing, developing, testing, maintaining, and enhancing Mastercard's software solutions to ensure quality, security,
scalability, and performance to deliver measurable business value.

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Key Responsibilities

- Develop and execute short-term and medium-term strategic plans for Quality Engineering
- Lead the design and delivery of complex testing solutions across full-stack applications, data systems, and infrastructure
- Drive test automation strategy — define what to automate, at what layer, with what tooling
- Embed quality earlier in the lifecycle (shift-left) and extend into production (shift-right)
- Define QE strategy for data products — pipeline validation, data contracts, schema drift detection, ML model quality
- Establish evaluation and quality frameworks for AI and agentic products — guardrail testing, hallucination detection, prompt regression testing
- Own release quality gates and define ship-or-hold criteria
- Drive root cause analysis on production incidents and escaped defects
- Manage budget, resource planning, and vendor relationships for QE
- Hire, develop, and retain world-class QE talent; build compelling career paths
- Evaluate, select, and manage QE tooling; drive build-vs-buy decisions
- Stay current with industry QE practices and represent Mastercard externally

Qualifications

Required:
- 12+ years of software engineering experience, with 7+ years focused on Quality Engineering at increasing levels of scope and leadership
- 5+ years managing engineering teams, including managing people leaders (managers of managers)
- Demonstrated expertise across full-stack application quality (API, UI, microservices) and data/ML system quality (pipelines, models, data
platforms)
- Track record of defining and executing QE strategy at scale — not just running a test team, but transforming how an organization approaches
quality
- Experience in financial services, payments, or other highly regulated technology environments
- Strong communication skills including the ability to assert quality positions to senior leadership, present to executives, and influence without
authority
- Experience with budget and resource management, including forecasting, vendor management, and build-vs-buy decisions
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

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.




About this role

Summary

Lead global quality engineering, develop strategies, manage teams, enhance product quality and reliability

Job title

Director, Software Engineering

Experience level

12+ years

Minimum experience

12+ years exp

Industry

technology

Location requirements

Dublin 18, Ireland; remote work not specified

Salary

Not specified

Management role

Yes

Skills & keywords

Required skills

software engineeringleadershipfull-stackdata qualityAI/ML

Preferred skills

financial servicesregulated environmentsbudget managementvendor management

Specializations

quality engineeringfull-stackdata systemsAI/MLtest automation
Locations

Structured locations inferred from the posting.

Unknown location

Work arrangement unknown