Lead Software Engineer - Java Spring Boot, Kafka and Event-Driven Architecture

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 - Java Spring Boot, Kafka and Event-Driven Architecture Who is Mastercard? Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is 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. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all. Overview Payments Network Technology is seeking a software engineer to design, build, and support secure, scalable, and highly available payment-network solutions using Java, Spring Boot, Kafka, event-driven architecture, and cloud-native engineering practices. Roles and Responsibilities • Design, develop, test, deploy, and support software services based on technical and functional requirements. • Build Java and Spring Boot microservices, REST APIs, and Kafka-based event-driven integrations. • Apply object-oriented design, SOLID principles, reusable patterns, and secure coding practices. • Create unit, component, integration, and regression tests and participate in peer reviews. • Troubleshoot application, data, messaging, performance, and production issues. • Contribute to CI/CD, observability, operational readiness, resiliency, and automation. • Collaborate with product, architecture, testing, operations, and dependent engineering teams. • Provide technical or product leadership, mentor team members, and drive decisions across multiple workstreams. Essential Skills • Hands-on Java and Spring Boot development experience. • Experience with microservices, REST APIs, Kafka or similar messaging platforms, and event-driven architecture. • Knowledge of SQL or NoSQL databases, Git, automated testing, CI/CD, containers, and cloud-native platforms. • Understanding of secure, scalable, resilient, and observable software design. • Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience. All About You • Experience working in Agile delivery environments and across the software development lifecycle. • Clear communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and stakeholder-management skills. • Ability to work with globally distributed product, engineering, architecture, operations, and business teams. • Hands-on experience using AI-assisted engineering tools, including GitHub Copilot and Claude CLI, to improve engineering efficiency is required. • Payments or financial-services domain knowledge is preferred. 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