Mastercard
Lisbon, Portugal
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.
Manager, Product Architect
overview
At Mastercard, we connect and power an inclusive digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible.
Within Product Innovation, in Authentication Services, we are building the future of secure, seamless digital authentication - and we are looking for a Manager, Product Architect to help shape what comes next.
This is a highly technical, individual contributor role focused on early-stage innovation, research, and architecture. You will help turn emerging technologies and bold ideas into validated product concepts, working proof points, and protected intellectual property that drive Mastercard’s authentication strategy.
Role
As a Manager, Product Architect, you will operate at the convergence of product innovation, architecture, and applied research. You will support discovery and feasibility efforts for new authentication capabilities, design future-state architectures, and deliver working proof of concepts that validate technical and business hypotheses.
You will also serve as a trusted technical advisor to delivery teams, helping transition innovative concepts into scalable product constructs while ensuring alignment with Mastercard’s security, regulatory, and architectural standards.
Key Responsibilities
• Support highly technical product ideas from early ideation through discovery, feasibility assessment, and validation
• Develop research proposals, technical designs, and experimental approaches to explore new authentication concepts
• Design and build proof of concepts (PoCs) to validate functionality, scalability, security, and performance
• Assess and respond to industry, technology, and regulatory changes impacting authentication and digital identity
• Translate external trends and insights into actionable recommendations that inform Mastercard’s authentication strategy and roadmap
• Contribute to thought leadership around future authentication models and product differentiation
• Define conceptual and high-level architectures for new authentication products and platforms
• Ensure alignment with Mastercard’s architecture principles, security frameworks, and platform strategies
• Identify technical risks, dependencies, and design trade-offs early in the product lifecycle
• Identify and explore patentable concepts arising from research and innovation activities
• Partner with Legal and IP (Intelectual Property) teams to support invention disclosures and patent filings that protect Mastercard’s IP
• Act as a technical consultant to product and engineering teams during product development and delivery
• Provide architectural guidance to ensure solutions are implemented as designed and can scale globally
• Support teams in solving complex technical challenges related to authentication, security, and integration
Required Experience
• Proven experience in product architecture, solution architecture, or software engineering
• Strong background in authentication, identity, security, or fraud-related technologies
• Hands-on experience delivering research-driven initiatives, prototypes, or proof of concepts
• Ability to evaluate emerging technologies and assess their applicability to real-world products
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (advanced degree preferred)
Key Skills & Attributes
• Knowledge of authentication standards, biometrics, MFA, and risk-based authentication approaches
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with comfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces
• Ability to communicate complex technical ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Collaborative mindset with the ability to influence without formal authority
Why Mastercard?
• Work on globally impactful products used by millions of consumers and businesses every day
• Be part of a culture that values innovation, curiosity, and continuous learning
• Collaborate with world-class talent across product, engineering, security, and research
• Contribute directly to Mastercard’s long-term technology strategy and intellectual property portfolio
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: