Principal Technical Program Manager

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

Principal Technical Program Manager

Overview:
We’re seeking experienced and driven Technical Program Managers to join our Enterprise Platform and Operations Strategy Enablement team. In this role, you’ll lead the end-to-end execution of strategic initiatives that power the next generation of Mastercard’s operations. You’ll collaborate across infrastructure, Operations, legal, and compliance teams to build and execute comprehensive project plans that drive innovation, efficiency, and operational excellence.
As a key contributor, you’ll support Mastercard’s Enterprise Monitoring capabilities, Production Engineering, and AIOps teams working closely with technology and application teams to develop robust event management, AI, automation, and runbook solutions that ensure continuous uptime and optimized operational performance.
Join a team where creativity, collaboration, and forward-thinking solutions are at the heart of everything we do.
Role:
As a Principal Technical Program Manager, you will lead complex, cross-functional initiatives with autonomy, transforming ambiguity into clear, actionable plans. You will drive execution across the full product lifecycle, aligning business and technical priorities to deliver impactful, high quality solutions.
Key Responsibilities:
• Program Leadership: Manage from ideation to delivery, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and measurable business value.
• Agile & Lean Expertise: Champion Lean principles and Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban), guiding multiple teams in adopting best practices, improving flow, predictability, and quality.
• Cross-Functional Execution: Coordinate across engineering, operations, legal, and business teams to resolve dependencies, remove blockers, and maintain momentum.
• Backlog & Delivery Management: Maintain transparent, prioritized backlogs; facilitate grooming, planning, and synchronization across teams to ensure consistent delivery cadence.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Facilitate timely decision-making with internal and external stakeholders, ensuring alignment and clarity across regions and functions.
• Technical Acumen: Understand technical architectures and trade-offs; ask the right questions to evaluate scalability, performance, and operational impact.
• Continuous Improvement: Identify and eliminate inefficiencies, implement reporting mechanisms, and drive continuous improvement across teams and processes.
• Mentorship & Influence: Mentor peers, contribute to the TPM community, and support recruiting efforts to build a high-performing program management culture.
Strategic Communication: Translate complex ideas into clear communications; provide visibility into program status and risks to all levels of the organization.
All About You
• Proven ability to manage multiple high-impact projects simultaneously under pressure and with minimal supervision.
• Strong sense of urgency and ownership in driving multiple activities to completion.
• Self-motivated and quick to learn new technologies with minimal guidance.
• Deep expertise in Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and Lean principles, with experience leading Agile transformations or coaching teams.
• Solid understanding of enterprise infrastructure, monitoring, automation, and AIOps concepts; able to engage effectively with engineering teams on architecture and design decisions.
• Proficient in program and portfolio management tools such as JIRA, ALM, Archer, Aha!, DOMO, and Confluence.
• Demonstrated success in managing intake, prioritization, escalation, and governance processes across multiple cross-functional teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly convey complex information to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong problem-solving skills with a track record of navigating ambiguity, resolving conflicts, and aligning diverse stakeholders.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field required; advanced degree or certifications (e.g., PMP, SAFe, CSM) are a plus.

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.