Manager, Software Engineering at Mastercard in Pune, India
- Company: Mastercard
- Location: Pune, India
- Posted: Sep 21, 2026
- Type: Full-time
- Experience: 8+ years
- Visa sponsorship available
Overview
We are seeking a hands-on Manager, Software Engineering to lead the development of scalable data platforms, backend systems, and data pipelines supporting Mastercard's Portfolio Intelligence products. This role will initially focus on leading a team of Data Engineering contractors while providing st…
Job description
- We are seeking a hands-on Manager, Software Engineering to lead the development of scalable data platforms, backend systems, and data pipelines supporting Mastercard's Portfolio Intelligence products. This role will initially focus on leading a team of Data Engineering contractors while providing strong technical leadership across architecture, delivery, and engineering excellence.
- The ideal candidate is a recent practitioner who has built and operated modern data platforms and backend services, can confidently review architecture proposals and code, and leverages AI-powered engineering tools to improve productivity, quality, and delivery speed. As the team evolves, this leader will play a key role in building and developing a high-performing organization of full-time engineers.
- Earn credibility through strong technical depth and sound engineering judgment.
- Effectively lead contractor teams and drive accountability without relying solely on formal reporting structures.
- Improve engineering velocity through automation, AI-assisted development, and modern delivery practices.
- Balance short-term business commitments with long-term platform investments.
Responsibilities
- Technical Leadership
- Provide technical leadership for backend services, data pipelines, and platform capabilities that support analytics, reporting, and AI-driven products.
- Review architecture and design documents to ensure solutions are scalable, maintainable, secure, and aligned with long-term platform strategy.
- Conduct and oversee code reviews, promoting engineering best practices, reliability, security, and operational excellence.
- Partner with architects, product managers, and engineering leaders to shape technical roadmaps and investment priorities.
- Drive adoption of modern engineering practices, including automation, observability, testing, CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-code.
- Champion the effective use of AI-assisted development tools to improve developer productivity, code quality, documentation, and delivery velocity.
- Team Leadership
- Lead and coordinate a team of Data Engineering contractors, establishing clear expectations, accountability, and delivery outcomes.
- Manage contractor onboarding, work planning, quality management, and performance oversight.
- Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.
- Help build the long-term team structure and transition toward a blended organization of full-time and contingent engineers.
- Delivery & Execution
- Partner with Product and Program teams to translate business objectives into actionable engineering plans.
- Ensure predictable delivery of complex initiatives while balancing technical debt, platform investments, and feature development.
- Drive technical risk identification, mitigation planning, and execution tracking.
- Measure and improve key engineering metrics related to reliability, quality, operational health, and delivery effectiveness.
Requirements
- Required Experience
- 8+ years of software engineering experience with recent hands-on experience designing and building production systems.
- 2+ years of engineering leadership, technical lead, or people leadership experience.
- Experience leading or managing contractor and/or distributed engineering teams.
- Strong experience building backend platforms, APIs, and data-intensive applications.
- Experience designing and implementing scalable data pipelines and data processing solutions.
- Experience reviewing architecture documents, technical designs, and production-quality code.
- Experience working in Agile product development environments.
- Experience collaborating with teams in different time zones.
- Technical Skills
- Strong programming experience in Java, Python, Scala, or similar languages.
- Experience with distributed data processing technologies such as Spark.
- Experience with modern data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Hadoop, or equivalent.
- Experience designing RESTful APIs, microservices, and cloud-native applications.
- Solid understanding of data modeling, database design, and data architecture principles.
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, version control, automated testing, and DevOps practices.
- Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
- Experience building platforms that support advanced analytics, machine learning, or AI use cases.
- Experience defining engineering standards and governance practices.
- Experience modernizing legacy data platforms and migrating workloads to cloud environments.
- Experience implementing AI-assisted software development workflows using tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, or similar technologies.
Skills
Required
- Technical leadership
- Team leadership
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Accountability
- Ownership
- Continuous improvement
- Technical excellence
- Java
- Python
- Scala
- Spark
About Mastercard
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. Everyone wants easier ways to pay; we invent them. Checkout lines are slow; we speed them along. Merchants want more sales; we give them data and insights. People need financial access; we connect them. Corporate purchasing is complicated; we make it simple. Commuters are busy; we speed them on their way. Governments need greater efficiencies; we help create them. Small businesses are virtual; we give them access to a world of buyers. Retailers want to fight fraud; we provide the tools.