Lead Network Security Architect

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 Network Security Architect

The Lead Network Security Architect is responsible for defining, designing, and evolving the enterprise network architecture to ensure best in class performance, reliability, and security. This role partners with other Network Architecture teams to set the strategic direction for network security platforms, develops architectural standards and roadmaps, and oversees the design and delivery of complex solutions that support a global, hybrid, and highly distributed environment.
The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in modern cloud networking, zero trust security models, and large scale enterprise architecture - along with the ability to influence, mentor, and partner across engineering, security, and operations teams.

Key Responsibilities
• Develop and maintain comprehensive network architecture blueprints, standards, reference patterns, and multi-year roadmaps.
• Architect and design high performance, highly available, and secure network solutions aligned with enterprise strategy.
• Identify opportunities for modernization, optimization, and resiliency improvements across the network and security landscape.
• Lead and execute strategic network initiatives related to performance engineering, network security, zero trust adoption, automation, and infrastructure transformation.
• Define and communicate technology component standards spanning networking, security, cloud, and operating systems.
• Troubleshoot, analyze, and resolve complex and systemic network architecture issues; escalate rare or business impacting challenges as needed.
• Collaborate closely with Cloud Engineering, Information Security, Platform Engineering, Operations, and Application teams to ensure cohesive and scalable designs.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers across teams, influencing architectural direction and best practices.
• Ensure architectural governance, design reviews, and adherence to standards for new and existing network implementations.

All About You
Education
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• A passion for working on a collaborative, innovative, and high performing Architecture team.

Significant knowledge and experience in the following areas:

Enterprise Network Security
• Hands-on experience with major network and security vendors such as Palo Alto, Check Point, VMware, Illumio, and Zscaler across large scale design, deployment, and operational domains.
• Experience with Zero Trust architectures and methods including segmentation, identity-aware access, and secure access service edge (SASE) design patterns.
• Experience in global enterprise networking: LAN/WAN, routing, switching, firewalls, and encryption technologies.
• Experience designing and implementing large-scale network security architectures across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Demonstrated track record of delivering complex, mission critical infrastructure projects in enterprise environment.
Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in deploying SASE solutions at a global scale.
• Experience with automation frameworks such as Terraform, Ansible, and infrastructure-as-code methodologies
• Familiarity with large-scale platform engineering automation patterns
• Exposure to integrating network and security platforms with CI/CD pipelines"

Skills / Abilities
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, capable of conveying complex concepts to technical and non technical stakeholders.
• Self-starter with strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving abilities.
• Effective leader and mentor, with the ability to guide engineering teams, provide architectural direction, and foster a high-performance culture.
• Strong decision-making capabilities, especially in high-pressure or ambiguous technical situations.
• Ability to manage multiple initiatives, competing priorities, and dynamic timelines while maintaining high-quality outcomes.

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
O'Fallon, Missouri: $122,000 - $207,000 USD