Director, Technical Program Management

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

Director, Technical Program Management

Overview:
The Mastercard Data Platforms team is seeking a Director, Technical Program Management to lead our mission of unlocking the full potential of Mastercard’s data assets. In this high-impact role, you will drive innovation, reduce friction in the management of big data assets, and ensure seamless data accessibility across both public cloud (AWS, Azure) and on-premise environments. You will champion standards, best practices, and governance principles to enable modern, scalable, and secure data platforms.

As the Director, you will collaborate with cross-geography teams of data engineers and platform engineers, aligning efforts across multiple initiatives into a unified execution framework. Your expertise in technical program management will be critical in harmonizing delivery approaches, ensuring accountability, and enabling our teams to consistently deliver high-value data products and platforms.

Role:
• Lead the planning, execution, and delivery of complex technical programs from inception to completion, ensuring alignment with business goals and technical vision.
• Drive end-to-end delivery of engineering initiatives across multiple teams and organizations, proactively identifying dependencies, mitigating risks, and removing blockers.
• Collaborate with multiple scrum teams, acting as an embedded contributor or a cross-cutting program lead as needed.
• Build and maintain integrated program schedules that account for internal and external dependencies, delivery approaches, and contingency planning for unplanned delays.
• Partner with engineering managers to secure resources, define scope, set priorities, and establish delivery milestones.
• Negotiate priorities and trade-offs with stakeholders to align on the most impactful deliverables.
• Sequence and orchestrate workstreams to maximize engineering efficiency and minimize bottlenecks.
• Manage project communications, ensuring timely, clear, and audience-appropriate updates on program status, risks, and decisions.
• Facilitate effective technical and program review meetings, promoting a knowledge-driven approach to decision-making.
• Foster strong relationships across engineering, product, and leadership teams to maintain alignment and collaboration.
• Ensure adherence to program management best practices, governance models, and technical standards.

All About You:
• Extensive experience in technical program management, software delivery, or related technology leadership roles, including managing large-scale, complex programs, leading cross-functional teams, and driving strategic initiatives from conception to delivery.
• Proven ability to quickly learn and understand the functionality, architecture, dependencies, and runtime properties of complex systems, including business requirements, use cases, technical stacks, interfaces, data flows, dependent applications/services, and data warehouse systems.
• Strong understanding of business context and the associated customer use cases.
• In-depth knowledge of data warehouse and analytics concepts, with exposure to Big Data platforms.
• Strong understanding of cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, Databricks, and Snowflake.
• Solid understanding of data engineering technologies, tools, and principles.
• Experience with Agile implementation tools such as Rally or Jira.
• Ability to evaluate system designs and architectures while participating in solution discussions.
• Improve team processes that accelerate delivery, drive innovation, lower costs, and improve quality
• Proven ability to improve team processes that accelerate delivery, drive innovation, lower costs, and enhance quality.
• Ability to identify resource gaps and propose thoughtful, sustainable solutions to benefit the team.
• Conceptual understanding of the Data Analytics space and related technologies.
• Demonstrated ability to proactively seek solutions to technical and operational challenges.
• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify discordant views and engage in constructive dialogue to resolve them.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain technical problems clearly and succinctly and effectively sharing vision and roadmaps with diverse stakeholders.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Data Analytics, or a related field. Equivalent practical experience will also be considered.

#LI-NF1

Mastercard is a merit-based, inclusive, equal opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabled or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We hire the most qualified candidate for the role. In the US or Canada, if you require accommodations or assistance to complete the online application process or during the recruitment process, please contact [email protected] and identify the type of accommodation or assistance you are requesting. Do not include any medical or health information in this email. The Reasonable Accommodations team will respond to your email promptly.

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.

In line with Mastercard’s total compensation philosophy and assuming that the job will be performed in the US, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive base salary and may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role. The base salary offered may vary depending on multiple factors, including but not limited to location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Mastercard benefits for full time (and certain part time) employees generally include: insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance); flexible spending account and health savings account; paid leaves (including 16 weeks of new parent leave and up to 20 days of bereavement leave); 80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time, 25 days of vacation time and 5 personal days, pro-rated based on date of hire; 10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays; 401k with a best-in-class company match; deferred compensation for eligible roles; fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities; eligibility for tuition reimbursement; and many more.

Pay Ranges

Atlanta, Georgia: $138,000 - $230,000 USD