software engineer

senior software engineer

vice president

director

associate consultant

Mastercard

I applied to a management consulting role out of college, and the interview process was typical of a management consulting firm. My actual job function, however, was more akin to a software help desk representative. Most people in the Arlington office are staffed on APT projects, which mostly involve helping external teams use the APT software suite. This includes walking users through inputting tests their companies have already set up to APT, configuring the APT tool that loads data into the platform, and taking notes for internal meetings on user demos and data ingestion. While one will learn to use SQL, most of this job is very repetitive and unfulfilling. Staffing is done in redundant verticals, which creates an arbitrary hierarchy based on a person's number of years at the company (which is usually a small number as people tend to leave the company fairly quickly). Compensation and promotional growth are also quite slow. In fairness, some positives are the 401k match (10% on 6% employee contribution, which is excellent), generous work life balance, and the work environment, in which colleagues are generally friendly and helpful. To close, I would emphasize that this is not a management consulting job, despite the language used throughout the recruiting cycle, and generally revolves around supporting B2B software delivery. If that is appealing, then this might be a good place to work.

I was able to gain experience, share new ideas, collaborate with diverse people, participate and learn in a team through meetings and this is what I consider the best way to build a strong platform into work environment. Being a team member of MasterCard Parameter System we all try to coordinate and communicate with people even when they work from home. A specific instance of this can be project estimate meeting which I attended and few of the participants on the meeting were on phone and the rest were in the meeting room. Discussions regarding assignment of specific task for the project and number of hours required to complete the task are discussed in this meeting. Physical presence of a team member is not needed in order to achieve success in the team but rather good and continuous communication and coordination is a key to success.  Irrespective of my manager keeping an eye on me on what I am working for or how long I am working for I myself act with integrity towards my work and which I feel is the most important thing needed in any work environment. SharePoint demonstration meeting helped me deliver some of my innovative skills while on the other hand taking an initiative in participating in Business Resource Group helped me feel involved not only in my team but beyond it.

MasterCard is a wonderful place to work.  Most of my days were not typical with new situations happening everyday with every client.

I worked with several high profile financial institutions, i.e., JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, U.S. Bank.  I was responsible for all of their licensing needs.  The processing of licensing forms was also a responsibility by inputting client information, details and projections into the MasterCard licensing database, MPI.  Portfolio sales, mergers, consolidations and platform changes were another part of the position.

I thoroughly enjoyed by job as I was able to have direct contact with my clients throughout the United States.  I also work on a cross-functional team and Enterpol, aimed at tracking down illegal uses of credit cards which would or could potentially damage the MasterCard Brand.  The hardest part of my job was prioritizing workload.  All financial institution needed their licensing issues resolved immediately so it would not directly effect their customers' use of the MasterCard cards.

The most enjoyable to part of my job, as stated above, was the direct contact with the clients and working with a fun, energetic, friendly and devoted team of co-workers.

Since the departure of a key top management decision maker, morale is very low. There have been many reorganizations, but the company still works in silos.  Additionally, there is a large "us vs. them" mentality that is not productive and leads to mental fatigue. Strategy exists, but not every program strives to meet it and communication to resolve these issues is practically non-existent. Each week there seems to be a new "fire to fight" outside of the stated objectives.  This causes delays and a lack of attention to detail due to the constant changing of direction.  Training, coaching, and development are not available, causing every employee to move forward based on their best guess of what is needed or expected.  The company tries to control their mis-steps with mass layoffs - of which there have been 4 in the past two and a half years.  Roles are eliminated, but later refilled by an individual with a different title. Stress is high and low-trust looms as employees try to keep their job off of the chopping block.  

Working at the TechHub in NYC Mastercard tries to create a "start up" culture. The office is very nice. Modern. Open. No offices. However, from a cultural stand-point they are not successful. Start up/Agile environments that they are trying to cultivate succeed because of the empowerment of the teams. Teams are given autonomy to get the job done any way they want. Those companies don't stress over how the office is decorated. If it helps productivity that's all that matters.  At MC the command-and-control culture of a big multi-national corporation is still very evident. Case in point: the rolling desk pedestals have a cushioned top with one of three colors. These colors correspond to the color of the columns in various areas of the floor. Red pedestals MUST stay near Red columns! It's indicative of the controlling - not empowering - nature of the culture.

There are still many many good things about MC. But if you're expecting an Agile, collaborative, start-up culture then you may want to look elsewhere.

On paper, the company looks great to work for with great pay and decent benefits but it's all smoke and mirrors. If you work in any sort of Operations or Account Management role, say goodbye to work/life balance. You'll also be paid less than people at the same level that work less outside of those organizations. Expect to be bogged down in senseless meetings throughout most of the day and still expected to hit deadlines with the few hours that you have left over. This place is chaos and it starts with the executive management that clearly have no centralized focus, especially within any sort of operations whether it's technical, development, or business.  Now, if you're an entry to lower level applicant, definitely get in there but know that your job will never be safe so milk it quickly and then escape as fast as you can. 60 hour work weeks should be expected but if you're up against deadlines or your management is even more clueless than the rest of them, get ready to easily push 90 hour weeks with no reward except a salary which you have no time to enjoy

Fast paced environment where the processing of European invoices to ensure prompt payment.  I learned how tax codes work in Europe and how to process correctly so MasterCard receives the discounts from the different governments in Europe.  In turn, the refunds go to MasterCard which provides a savings of several million dollars a year.  Incentive invoices proved the most challenging because the process was inefficient and required review at least three times, enter into the system and place on hold, then wait for the hold-release for the payment to be made.  To overcome this, we streamlined the process to only review twice and only enter into the system once the invoice was ready to be paid.  The most enjoyable part of my job was the volume of work that needed to be processed.  There was always something to do and always something new to learn.  The management was wonderful in allowing us to learn so many different processes as well as having confidence that when we were given an assignment we would complete it correctly.

I started working for Mastercard in 2003 when it was still a private organization. The company treated it's employees very well and provided several perks as well. However, once the company became public it became more concerned with the bootom line than it's workers.

Slowly they started outsourcing positions to foriegn countries and then started eliminating positions in the united states and also in Europe. The management over me became increasingly out of touch with their employees and people started leaving the department I worked at in droves.

Me, several of my coworkers and my manager were all fired because we were doing our time incorrectly. I was never advised I was doing anything wrong nor was I ever warned I was doing anything wrong. Management was resposible for approving my time and they never mentioned anything wrong either.

MasterCard HR fired me with no questions asked due to this and I felt like I was basically branded as a thief.

A typical day at work would entail meetings, project work, people management, skill building ... I learned much about people management and how people, funding, skills, and attitude all work together to provide a great work environment while at the same time getting a ton of work done.  Management, at least most of the managers I worked with, cared about their employees.  Some managers were beasts but I think that is anywhere you go.  The workplace culture changed over the time I was there from a midwestern (US) family company to a liberal international company - If you like liberal workplace values then you wouldn't be disappointed.  The hardest part of the job was sometimes just doing what you were told whether it made sense to me or not.  I was employed by smart people that sometimes did things that made me scratch my head.  But, you do the work.  The most enjoyable part of the job are the lasting friendships that I have made.

After being here for a short time you realize exactly how best place to work awards are rigged. Mastercard is tossing a ton of investment as a newly woke company.  There is nothing truly inclusive to be found here. The culture is siloed underhanded and extremely political.

My first assignment was how Mastercard is going to destroy the world with a cashless society.  Any credit card company who thinks they are closing the income disparity gap by issuing credit cards for marginalized people is delusional. Interest rates will harm them farther.

This company is selfish with its new found equity and equality mission and it shows. They could care less about the people they employ so don't expect they care about climate change equity or social justice. They care about money power and control. 

I wish I never accepted this job this company loathes 60% of the people they serve. Very untrustworthy 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 44 salaries reported	$144,874 per year
Senior software engineer 67 salaries reported	$135,774 per year
Vice president 31 salaries reported	$273,742 per year
Director 15 salaries reported	$205,600 per year
Associate consultant 9 salaries reported	$124,389 per year

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