Lead AI Full Stack 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 Full Stack Engineer

Overview
As a Lead AI Full Stack Engineer, on the AI Foundations team, you will play a critical role in architecting and delivering end-to-end AI/ML solutions. You will combine deep full stack engineering expertise with a strong understanding of AI systems to build intuitive user interfaces and scalable backend services that bring machine learning insights to life. Your work will directly translate complex algorithms into impactful, user-centric applications that drive strategic business outcomes.

Your role
• End-to-End Development: Lead the full lifecycle of AI-powered applications, from frontend user experience design to backend service development and integration with AI/ML models.
• Backend Engineering: Develop robust backend services and APIs that manage model training, inference, data pipelines, and agentic workflows. Implement scalable data ingestion, event-driven architectures, and microservices that support real-time agent interactions.
• Frontend Engineering: Design and maintain responsive, user-friendly interfaces that enable users to interact with AI models and data.
• API Design: Develop high-performance APIs for internal and external use, ensuring seamless integration across systems.
• Performance Optimisation: Identify and resolve bottlenecks across the stack, including frontend responsiveness, backend efficiency, and model inference latency. Optimise agentic workflows for speed, scalability, and reliability.
• Technical Leadership: Provide mentorship and guidance to junior engineers; Champion best practices in architecture, development, and AI operationalisation exerting influence across all levels.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with data scientists, AI engineers, product managers, and stakeholders to translate business needs into technical solutions. Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Data & AI Ops, Privacy, AI Governance, Info Security, Architecture & Technonology, BizOps etc) to design development patterns fit for productionizing and scale.
• Security & Compliance: Ensure all solutions adhere to organisational security standards, data governance policies, and compliance requirements.
All about you
• Minimum 7+ years in full stack software development, with 3–4 years focused on AI/ML-driven applications and agentic system integration
• Proven track record of leading complex technical initiatives and mentoring engineering teams.
• Extensive experience with backend development frameworks (e.g., Node.js, Python/Flask/Django) and designing/implementing RESTful APIs
• Strong proficiency in frontend technologies including React, Next.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
• Experience with cloud platforms and their relevant services for compute, storage, databases, and networking
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines for automated deployment of full stack applications
• Familiarity with database technologies
• Understanding of the AI/ML lifecycle and experience in operationalising ML models and building agentic workflows
• Excellent interpersonal and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Ability to lead cross-functional projects and foster a culture of technical excellence.

The following skills are preferred
• Experience in the financial institutions or payments industry

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.