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, Data Scientist - SSO00037

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

We are looking for a highly skilled and strategic Director to lead our Data Science Research and Engineering teams in the Identity Verification service in Mastercard. This role is critical in driving data-powered insights and innovation to enhance our product performance and overall business growth. The Director will work cross-functionally with Product Management, Engineering, Data Asset, and other teams to develop and optimize the models that will power and grow our marketplace, and provide actionable data insights to the business.

We are looking for someone with expertise in Machine Learning (ML) and Data Science (DS) who has led both teams, with a healthy balance and perspective on how the two disciplines can best work together to optimize for time to market and business outcome delivery. This role is ideal for someone who loves a mix of hands-on technical leadership and long-term strategic thinking. Ideally you thrive in a fast-paced, innovative environment and are passionate about leveraging and optimizing ML & DS to shape the future of Identity Verification in pursuit of our long-term Mission and Vision.


Role

You’ll have exciting responsibilities, including:

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of Data Science Researchers and Engineers.
• Assist with talent acquisition efforts and initiatives, facilitates training programs and conducts performance management for team of direct reports.
• Define and execute the strategic vision for Data Science in alignment with overall company goals, ensuring there are clear roles and responsibilities for the team.
• Consult with Product teams to understand and translate their needs into a data analyses and/or solution, ensure their requirements are accurately captured and technically feasible.
• Foster a collaborative culture across the team and ensure alignment with engineering and product teams on priorities and roadmaps.
• Guide the team in comprehensive technical analyses and allocate work across teams to ensure the delivery of high quality and effective solutions.
• Deliver outcomes and manage timelines, balancing long-term strategic goals with immediate operational needs.
• Be the connective tissue between the function and company leadership, being an advocate for ML and DS and the value they drive.
• Ensure the ROI of the team’s efforts are high and that their time and focus is matched to the value of the outcomes and balanced with time to value.
• Partner with Engineering teams on the design and deployment of scalable ML infrastructure and algorithms in production environments. Identifies and recommends opportunities to standardize and automate efforts.
• Liaise with internal stakeholders to identify and elaborate on opportunities as they relate to data and machine learning solution development, feasibility, and other technical offerings to improve marketplace outcomes, leveraging Mastercard’s global data assets and software platform.
• Communicate findings and recommendations to senior leadership and other non-technical stakeholders.


All About You

Ideally, you have:

• Demonstrated success using agile process when developing and delivering products or solutions.
• A proven track record of deploying high performance machine learning models at scale in a production environment.
• Successfully possessed strong awareness of internal capabilities, resource utilization, designated work streams and assignments. Effectively managed projects and project expectations to deliver.
• Strong expertise in statistical analysis, machine learning algorithms, and data manipulation.
• Strong proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java, SQL, along with experience using Machine Learning and Cloud frameworks.
• Ability to translate complex data and technical concepts into business insights and actionable recommendations.
• Experienced being a great people leader but able to dig into the work where necessary.
• Excellent people and stakeholder management skills, to include strong influencing skills and ability to navigate a global organization.
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to mentor and inspire teams. Strong passion and commitment for attracting and developing talent.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels.
• Outstanding problem-solving skills, with strong ability to drive towards action and impact.
• Demonstrated ability to drive business value through research, innovations, insights and measurements.
• Ability to lead through ambiguity and change.
• High-energy and self-driven orientation.

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.