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, Data Engineering

Overview:

The Mastercard Services Technology team is looking for Director of Data Engineering, to lead our mission of unlocking the full potential of Mastercard's data assets. In this high-impact role, you will drive innovation, reduce friction in the management of big data assets, and ensure seamless data accessibility across both public cloud (AWS, Azure) and on-premise environments. You will champion standards, best practices, and governance principles to enable modern, scalable, and secure data platforms.
As the Director, you will collaborate with cross-geography teams of data engineers and platform engineers, aligning efforts across multiple initiatives into a unified execution framework. Your expertise in technical program management will be critical in harmonizing delivery approaches, ensuring accountability, and enabling our teams to consistently deliver high-value data products and platforms.
Role:

• Lead the design and delivery of end-to-end cloud-native solutions with a focus on Lakehouse architectures (S3, Azure Data Lake, Databricks, EMR, Athena, etc.).
• Provide both technology and people leadership, mentoring engineers and fostering a culture of excellence, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Drive CI/CD pipeline development, infrastructure-as-code, and automated environment provisioning across AWS and Azure.
• Set and enforce security best practices (IAM, encryption, network security) and ensure compliance with frameworks such as GDPR and HIPAA.
• Establish and enforce enterprise-grade data governance frameworks, including data cataloging, lineage, classification, and access control, leveraging tools like Lake Formation or Azure Purview.
• Design and lead implementation of robust data engineering pipelines, including ETL/ELT, data lakes, and data warehouses.
• Implement Lakehouse architectures using the medallion model (Bronze, Silver, Gold) with deep integration into AWS services (Glue, Lake Formation) and analytics engines (Databricks, EMR, Athena).
• Continuously monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize systems for performance, reliability, scalability, and cost efficiency.
• Work closely with product, engineering, and data stakeholders to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Participate in architectural discussions, sprint planning, feature sizing, and Agile ceremonies to ensure seamless execution.
• Stay current with emerging technologies in cloud, data, and DevOps to keep our platforms future-ready.
• Effectively communicate technical vision, trade-offs, and roadmaps to diverse stakeholders.

All About You:

• Extensive experience in cloud and data platform architecture, DevOps, or related roles, with proven leadership of cross-functional teams.
• Hands-on expertise with AWS and Azure services: S3, EC2, Lambda, Glue, Redshift, Lake Formation, Azure Data Factory, Fabric, Synapse, and Databricks.
• Strong track record of building DevOps pipelines and infrastructure-as-code using Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates, Azure DevOps, or GitLab CI/CD.
• Solid understanding of cloud security concepts, IAM design, data encryption, and governance frameworks.
• Experience with data engineering frameworks (Spark, Py Spark) and large-scale ETL systems.
• Proficiency in scripting and automation using Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
• Demonstrated success delivering production-ready medallion architecture solutions.
• Experience with containerization & orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, ECS, AKS).
• Familiarity with data governance tools (Lake Formation, Purview) and observability stacks (CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, ELK).
• Knowledge of cloud cost optimization and financial management.
• Exposure to MLOps workflows and ML pipeline integrations.
• Comfortable working in Agile/Scrum environments with strong collaboration skills.
• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify discordant views and engage in constructive dialogue to resolve them.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain technical problems clearly and succinctly and effectively sharing vision and roadmaps with diverse stakeholders.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Data Analytics, or a related field. Equivalent practical experience will also be considered.

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.

Pay Ranges

Atlanta, Georgia: $165,000 - $264,000 USD