Lead AI Engineer

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

Lead AI Engineer

Overview

As a Lead AI Engineer at Mastercard, you will be instrumental in designing, building, and scaling AI microservices that transform PoC notebooks into robust, production-ready components. You will play a pivotal role in creating the foundational AI services that power our next-generation solutions, ensuring they are scalable, efficient, and seamlessly integrated into the broader Mastercard ecosystem

Key Responsibilities

Lead the E2E design and development of AI-powered microservices, focusing on modularity, scalability, and reusability, to support various business units and applications
Drive the transition of AI models from notebook-based PoCs and experimental phases into hardened, production-grade components and services, ensuring performance, reliability, and maintainability
Design and implement robust APIs for AI microservices, facilitating seamless integration with existing Mastercard platforms and external systems.
Identify and address performance bottlenecks within AI microservices and their underlying infrastructure, optimizing for latency, throughput, and cost-efficiency.
Work closely with data scientists, MLOps engineers, and product teams to translate business requirements into technical specifications for AI services. Mentor junior engineers on best practices for AI software development and scaling
Implement rigorous testing strategies, including unit, integration, and performance testing, to ensure the quality, accuracy, and stability of deployed AI microservices
Research and evaluate new technologies, frameworks, and methodologies related to AI software development, microservices, and large-scale data processing to continuously improve our capabilities
Ensure all AI microservices adhere to Mastercard's security standards, compliance policies, and ethical AI principles

Qualifications

Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related technical field. Master's degree preferred
Experience: Minimum of 8+ years of experience in software development, with at least 4 years specifically focused on building and deploying AI/ML-powered applications or microservices in production environments
Technical Skills:
Strong proficiency in Python
Extensive experience in designing, developing, and deploying RESTful APIs and microservices
Proven experience in scaling machine learning models from prototype to production, including familiarity with feature stores, model registries, and inference patterns
Solid understanding of the AI/ML lifecycle, from data preparation and model training to deployment and monitoring
Experience with cloud platforms and their relevant compute, storage, and AI/ML services
Proficiency with containerization technologies
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and deployment of software and AI models
Experience with distributed computing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Dask) is a plus
Understanding of data governance, data quality, and data security principles relevant to AI/ML applications
Excellent communication, interpersonal, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to effectively articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences
Proven ability to lead technical initiatives, drive cross-functional projects, and influence outcomes within a fast-paced environment
#AI

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.