Lead Product Manager-Technical

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 Product Manager-Technical

Overview:

Mastercard's Global Credit Card Authorization team is seeking a Lead Product Manager - Technical (PM-T) to drive the evolution of our authorization platform. This role sits at the intersection of technology, product, and payments, powering secure, real-time transaction decisioning at global scale.

Product Manager - Technical (PM-T) roles at Mastercard are deeply technical and partner closely with Software Engineers, Technical Program Managers, User Experience, and cross-functional stakeholders to translate business needs into scalable, high-impact platform capabilities.

As a Lead PM-T, you will own the end-to-end product lifecycle for critical authorization services, defining platform building blocks and ensuring they are performant, resilient, and reusable across Mastercard's global network.

This is a hybrid role based in O'Fallon, MO, with an expectation of three days per week onsite.

Role:

* Own and define platform building blocks, including requirements, technical specifications, and user experience considerations.

* Define and execute product strategy and roadmap for credit card authorization capabilities.

* Apply the Working Backwards methodology to drive clarity of product vision, customer value, and measurable outcomes.

* Decompose complex business and technical requirements into well-defined user stories with clear acceptance criteria.

* Prioritize and maintain a well-groomed product backlog that balances near-term delivery with long-term platform strategy.

* Lead elaboration and refinement sessions, ensuring alignment for accurate estimation and delivery planning.

* Partner closely with engineering teams to deliver scalable, low-latency, and highly resilient systems.

* Continuously innovate on behalf of internal and external customers, improving authorization performance, reliability, and approval rates.

* Define how new capabilities integrate into the broader Mastercard platform ecosystem.

* Leverage data and performance metrics to inform decisions and optimize customer experience.

* Identify potential commercialization opportunities and collaborate with product development teams to bring them to market.

* Serve as a domain expert for authorization platforms, driving long-term evolution beyond individual initiatives.

* Communicate product vision, priorities, and outcomes to senior leadership and global stakeholders.

All

About You:

* Previous experience as a Technical Product Manager or Product Manager in payments, fintech, or other high-scale, real-time systems

* Proven track record of leading large-scale technical programs from concept through delivery, with measurable business impact.

* Demonstrated ability to influence and align cross-functional stakeholders across multiple teams and organizations.

* Deep expertise in Agile/SAFe methodologies, with experience leading multiple teams across complex programs.

* Technical proficiency within the payments domain (Authorization, Clearing, Settlement)

* Systems-level technical understanding, able to partner with engineering on architecture, APIs, and platform design decisions.

* Comfortable leveraging modern tools and platforms such as MS Copilot, MS Project, , Jira, Confluence, Aha!, Figma, Power BI, Easy BI, or similar.

* Analytical and data-driven mindset, defining KPIs, dashboards, and metrics to measure program success and optimize outcomes.

* Strong business acumen: understands ROI, cost optimization, and revenue impact of programs.

* Skilled in cross-org strategic planning, shaping roadmaps, prioritizing initiatives, and making trade-offs across speed, cost, and quality.

* Proactive problem-solver, able…