Senior Technical Program Manager (Planning – Payments Domain)

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

Senior Technical Program Manager (Planning – Payments Domain)

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

The Mastercard Network & Digital Payment Services team is looking for a Senior Technical Program Manager to own planning and delivery execution across our product and platform portfolio. You will run the planning function for the organization — roadmap, forecast, budget, headcount, and delivery commitments — across multiple concurrent programs.

As Senior Technical Program Manager, you will work with product managers, tech leads, architects, and operations and engineering leaders to deliver complex programs. You will define roadmap deliverables, build execution plans, align dependencies, track progress, anticipate risks, manage escalations, and balance business needs against delivery constraints.
This is a planning and execution role rather than a hands-on engineering one. Success depends on structure, judgment, and problem-solving: bringing clarity to ambiguous work, making the plan and its trade-offs visible, and keeping leadership and delivery teams aligned on the same picture of reality.

The ideal candidate brings an entrepreneurial mindset — comfortable operating in ambiguity, willing to build the mechanism that doesn't exist yet, and able to run several unrelated programs at once without dropping any of them. You will spend much of your time with senior leaders and partner teams you do not manage, so the ability to influence without authority and earn trust quickly is essential. Highly motivated, intellectually curious, analytical, detail-oriented, an excellent communicator, and a strong problem-solve

Role

• Lead Program Delivery: Drive complex technical programs end-to-end, aligning cross-functional teams, removing blockers, and delivering against committed outcomes.
• Own Planning & Roadmaps: Translate strategy into prioritized roadmaps, delivery plans, milestones, and forecasts across multiple teams and initiatives.
• Manage Budget & Resources: Partner with Finance and Engineering to manage budgets, headcount, capacity, vendor spend, and trade-offs across competing priorities.
• Drive Program Health: Establish program metrics, manage risks and dependencies, track delivery performance, and provide clear executive-level reporting and recommendations.
• Influence Cross-Functional Teams: Partner with senior leaders across Product, Engineering, Operations, and Finance to drive alignment and accountability without direct authority.
• Solve Complex Problems: Bring structure to ambiguity, identify root causes, resolve delivery challenges, and proactively drive decisions and issues to closure.
• Drive Continuous Improvement: Use data, metrics, and stakeholder feedback to improve program execution, delivery predictability, operational processes, and alignment with strategic objectives.

All About You

Essential Knowledge, Skills & Experience
• Bachelor’s degree in business, Information Systems, Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Proven program leadership: Lead large-scale technical programs from inception through delivery, translating vision into measurable business outcomes.
• Strategic planning & execution: Build road maps, manage priorities, and execute complex programs across Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid environments.
• Financial & resource management: Own program budgets, forecasts, headcount, capacity planning, and resource allocation across multiple teams.
• Executive communication: Clearly communicate program status, risks, dependencies, and trade-offs to senior executives using concise, data-driven insights.
• Cross-functional leadership: Influence without authority, align senior stakeholders and partner teams, and drive accountability across complex organizations.
• Technical & analytical acumen: Apply strong problem-solving skills and technical fluency to assess complexity, identify delivery risks, and drive effective decisions.

Desirable / Additional Capabilities
• Thrives in ambiguity: Creates structure, processes, and solutions where requirements or established practices are unclear.
• Entrepreneurial mindset: Identifies opportunities, takes ownership, and drives improvements beyond defined responsibilities.
• Global program coordination: Experience managing stakeholders, teams, and vendors across multiple locations and time zones.
• Technology delivery expertise: Familiarity with software development lifecycles, release management, testing, and operational readiness.

#LI-FT1

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. Mastercard benefits for interns generally include: 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time; jury duty leave; and on-site fitness facilities in some locations.

Pay Ranges

New York City, New York: $115,000 - $196,000 USD