Principal, Platform Engineering

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
Principal, Platform Engineering
Principal Platform Engineer (Database)
Location: Dublin, Ireland (Hybrid)
Level: Principal / Lead Focus: 70% Architecture & Design | 30% Engineering & Implementation
Role Overview
We are seeking a visionary Principal Platform Engineer with a deep specialization in Oracle Database ecosystems to lead the architectural evolution of our data platforms. This is a high-impact role where you will define the blueprint for our mission-critical data infrastructure, ensuring maximum availability, scalability, and performance.
You will act as the primary architect for our Oracle Exadata environment, moving beyond routine maintenance to design complex, multi-site replication strategies and modern microservices-based data flows. While this is an architecture-heavy role (70%), you will remain technically "sharp" by leading high-level engineering efforts (30%) and tackling the most complex performance and stability challenges.
Key Responsibilities
* Architectural Strategy: Lead the design and roadmapping of our database platforms, focusing on Oracle MAA (Maximum Availability Architecture) to achieve zero-data-loss and continuous availability.
* Exadata Mastery: Serve as the Subject Matter Expert for Oracle Exadata (On-premises), optimising the stack from the storage cell level up to the database instance.
* High Availability & DR: Design and implement robust Data Guard and FSFO (Fast-Start Failover) configurations to meet stringent RTO/RPO requirements.
* Modern Integration: Architect complex GoldenGate replication topologies, including the design and deployment of GoldenGate Microservices for real-time data integration.
* Consolidation & Multi-tenancy: Drive the strategy for Oracle Multitenant architecture, acting as the lead expert on PDB/CDB (Pluggable Database) design and isolation.
* Performance Engineering: Act as the final escalation point for "deep-dive" performance tuning, utilising SQL optimisation, ASH/AWR analysis, and Exadata-specific features (Smart Scans, Storage Indexing).
* Hybrid Cloud Evolution: Contribute to the design of polyglot persistence layers, integrating Oracle with Open Source and Cloud-native technologies.
Required Technical Expertise
* Oracle Specialist: Extensive experience with Oracle 19c/23c, specifically within Exadata environments.
* Replication Expert: Proven track record designing GoldenGate (Classic and Microservices) for complex, high-volume data movement.
* Infrastructure-as-Code: Experience designing automated deployment patterns for database infrastructure.
* Design Pattern Fluency: Deep understanding of application design patterns and how they interact with the database layer.
* Performance Guru: Expert-level knowledge of Oracle internals and Exadata-specific tuning.
Preferred Qualifications ("The Plus List")
* Hands-on experience or architectural knowledge of PostgreSQL or Redis.
* Public Cloud experience with AWS (RDS/Aurora) or Azure (SQL Managed Instance/OCI Interconnect).
* Experience in the Dublin/EMEA tech ecosystem or financial services sector.
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.