Lead AI Engineer

Mastercard is hiring a Lead AI Engineer in Singapore, Singapore. Level rates it ; you can apply on Mastercard.

Level's read on this job

Level rates this AI engineer role Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
Tools and skills the posting cites include LLMs, Gans and Python.
Level classifies it as a lead role.
Level lists 1,000+ other open roles at Mastercard.

AI in this role

Lead AI Engineer driving generative AI innovation, prototyping, and production deployment within Mastercard's Foundry R&D team.

llmsganspythonci-cd

ragartificial-intelligencemachine-learninggenerative-aisoftware-engineeringtechnical-leadership

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 AI Engineer

Lead AI Engineer - Foundry R&D, Singapore

We are looking for a Lead AI Engineer to be part of The Mastercard Foundry R&D team. You will be part of the team that drives Mastercard's innovation journey by consistently looking to discover and learn new skills and technologies and apply them to create highly scalable products. The ideal candidate is passionate about technology, willing to experiment, agile, highly motivated, intellectually curious, analytical, and possesses an entrepreneurial mindset.

What you'll do
* Drive Generative AI Innovation: Lead the design and development of advanced AI solutions and proof-of-concepts focused on generative AI (e.g. LLMs, GANs). You will create prototypes, pilots, and MVPs that explore new use cases and demonstrate the art of the possible in payments and commerce. This includes pushing the frontier of applied AI through rapid experimentation and applied research.
* Technical Leadership: Provide hands-on technical leadership to a small, agile team of engineers. Guide the full software development lifecycle - from translating requirements into technical designs to coding, testing, and deployment. You'll establish high engineering standards (clean code, CI/CD, robust testing) and ensure production-ready quality for AI services. Mentor junior engineers and foster an innovation mindset within the team.
* Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams - including product owners, data scientists, researchers, and platform engineers - to identify AI opportunities and deliver solutions that meet business needs. You'll liaise with global teams in a fast-moving environment, ensuring alignment on project objectives and integrating generative AI features into existing products and processes.
* Model Deployment and Integration: You will oversee deploying these AI models into production environments and integrating them seamlessly with applications (in partnership with software and data engineers).
* R&D and Continuous Learning: Stay abreast of the latest developments in AI and especially generative AI. As part of Foundry R&D, you are expected to continuously explore emerging technologies (e.g. new model architectures, multimodal AI, agent-driven automation) and assess their potential impact on our products. You'll drive a culture of innovation by experimenting with advanced techniques (like retrieval-augmented generation, knowledge-grounded LLMs) and championing their adoption where they add value.

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.

How we rate this

Lead AI Engineer at Mastercard rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Lead AI Engineer is an open job at Mastercard.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The role is based in Singapore.
The job was posted on August 17, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Mastercard. Apply on Mastercard

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

RAGArtificial IntelligenceMachine learningGenerative AISoftware EngineeringTechnical LeadershipLLMsGans

Also common in AI engineer jobs at this level

Python Machine learning AI agents AWS Azure Google Cloud

Pay

Typical AI engineer job: $183k

This posting doesn't list pay. Use the typical AI engineer figure when pay comes up. See AI engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
Tell me about a project where artificial intelligence was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where generative ai was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, Generative AI, and Software Engineering. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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