Lead Software Engineer - C/C++, Unix/Linux, ARQC, ARPC, HSM

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 Software Engineer - C/C++, Unix/Linux, ARQC, ARPC, HSM

Who is Mastercard? We work to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere, by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships, and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. We cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences enable us to be a better team – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better business results.

Technology at Mastercard: What we create today will define tomorrow. Revolutionary technologies that reshape the digital economy to be more connected and inclusive than ever before. Safer, faster, more sustainable. And we need the best people to do it. Technologists who are energized by the challenges of a truly global network. With the talent and vision to create the critical systems and products that power global commerce and connect people everywhere to the vital goods and services they need every day. Working at Mastercard means being part of a unique culture. Inclusive and diverse, a rich collaboration of ideas and perspectives. A place that celebrates your strengths, values your experiences, and offers you the flexibility to shape a career across disciplines and continents. And the opportunity to work alongside experts and leaders at every level of the business, improving what exists, and inventing what’s next.

Role Overview: We are seeking a Lead Software Engineer with strong expertise in C/C++ and Unix/Linux systems to design, develop, and lead high-performance, scalable, and secure enterprise applications. The role requires hands-on technical leadership, architecture ownership, and cross-team collaboration to deliver mission-critical systems. Lead engineers are expected to own complex problems, drive architectural decisions, and mentor engineering teams, while ensuring high-quality software delivery.

Key Responsibilities: Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Design and develop high-performance, low-latency systems using C/C++ on Unix/Linux platforms

• Own end-to-end architecture for components and services, ensuring scalability and resiliency

• Introduce and adopt modern design patterns, frameworks, and best practices

• Provide technical direction and guidance to engineering teams. Development & Delivery

• Lead design, development, testing, and deployment activities

• Write efficient, maintainable, and secure C/C++ code adhering to coding standards.

• Drive automation of builds, testing, and deployment pipelines

• Troubleshoot complex production issues and ensure system stability System Design & Performance

• Architect systems for high throughput, fault tolerance, and performance optimization

• Perform performance tuning, memory optimization, and multithreading enhancements

• Ensure system reliability and availability (high uptime expectations) Collaboration & Stakeholder Management

• Work closely with product, QA, and operations teams to prioritize and deliver solutions

• Drive design discussions, trade-offs, and cross-functional decisions

• Coordinate across geographically distributed teams Mentorship & Engineering Excellence

• Mentor developers and promote best practices (code reviews, TDD, secure coding).

• Conduct technical interviews and help build high-performing teams

• Lead post-incident reviews and drive continuous improvement initiatives

Required Technical Skills:

• Strong experience of Cryptography in Payment cycle.

• Strong experience of Session Key Derivation and validation.

• Strong experience of Triple DES and Advanced Encryption Standard techniques.

• Strong understanding of Thales or equivalent Payment Validation HSM modules and its commands.

• Strong programming expertise in C and C++.

• Deep understanding of Unix/Linux systems, shell scripting, and system internals

• Strong understanding multi threading in C and Linux

• Experience with Multithreading and concurrency, Memory management and performance tuning, Socket programming / IPC mechanisms

• Knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and design patterns

• Familiarity with build tools (Make/CMake), debugging tools (gdb), gtest, and profiling tools.

• Strong experience of Github and Github Copilot.

• Strong experience of using Copilot with MCP servers.

All About you:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)

• Experience with Agile methodologies, strong understanding of DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines

• Experience writing unit, integration, and system tests

• Experience designing distributed systems or high-scale enterprise applications

• Exposure to security standards (OWASP, secure coding practices).

• Experience in payment systems / transaction processing / financial domain

• Exposure to cloud-native or hybrid systems

• Knowledge of additional languages (Java/Python) is a plus

• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills

• Ability to drive decisions and manage technical trade-offs

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management Ownership mindset and ability to lead under ambiguity

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.