Lead AI Engineer

Our Purpose

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.

Lead AI Engineer

As a Lead AI Engineer at Mastercard, you will take ownership of platform support for our AI solutions and use cases, playing a key role in designing, developing, and scaling AI services that turn innovative ideas into reliable, production‑ready components. Collaborating closely with data scientists and cross‑functional teams, you’ll help deliver scalable and efficient AI capabilities that are seamlessly embedded within Mastercard’s broader ecosystem.

This position is an excellent opportunity for someone eager to grow, expand their expertise, and become a recognized leader in the AI space.

• Provide platform level support for AI use cases across Microsoft Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Databricks, AWS, Azure, etc., helping teams adopt standards, tooling, and governance that enable rapid development and deployment across the organization.
• Lead the end‑to‑end design and development of AI powered services, focusing on modularity, scalability, and reusability to support various business units and applications.
• Drive the transition of AI models from notebook based PoCs and experimental phases into hardened, production grade components and services, ensuring performance, reliability, and maintainability.
• Design and implement robust APIs for AI services, facilitating seamless integration with existing Mastercard platforms and external systems.
• Identify and address performance bottlenecks within AI microservices and their underlying infrastructure, optimizing for latency, throughput, and cost efficiency.
• Collaborate closely with data scientists, MLOps engineers, product owners, and external partners to translate business requirements into technical specifications for agentic AI services.
• Mentor junior engineers on best practices for AI software development and scaling.
• Implement rigorous testing strategies, including unit, integration, and performance testing, to ensure the quality, accuracy, and stability of deployed AI microservices.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related technical field. Master’s degree preferred.
• Professional experience in software development with a focus on building and deploying AI/ML powered applications or microservices in production environments.
• Proficiency in MSFT Power Platform, Copilot Studio, AWS, Databricks, etc. tools and practices tailored for AI/ML systems.
• Strong proficiency in Python.
• Extensive experience designing, developing, and deploying RESTful APIs and microservices.
• Solid understanding of the AI/ML lifecycle, from data preparation and model training to deployment and monitoring.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and deployment of software and AI models.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to effectively articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives, drive cross‑functional projects, and influence outcomes within a fast‑paced environment.

Mastercard is a merit‑based, inclusive, equal‑opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We hire the most qualified candidate for the role.

• 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.

O'Fallon, Missouri: $140,000 - $231,000 USD