The company has a hiring target of 2,000 by 2025, many of which will be employees working on emerging tech.
Since its initial announcement of 1,500 jobs at its south Dublin campus, Mastercard has been steadily working towards filling those roles, a significant number of which will be technology-based roles.
In early 2022, the fintech giant officially opened its European Technology Hub, One South County, in Leopardstown.
Now, more than a year on from that opening, SiliconRepublic.com returned to the Mastercard building to learn more about its growth.
“The largest proportion of resources that we have in Ireland is to look after our European Technology Centre and our global R&D hub. So of the 1,300 people we’ve got here, nearly all of them work in those two organisations,” said Kelly Devine, divisional president for Mastercard UK and Ireland.
The company also has a hiring target of 2,000 by 2025. “So we’re not just not laying people off, we’re also bringing on more and more people and a lot of that is in the newer technologies, so it’s in things like AI and blockchain.”
Some of the professionals Mastercard is currently looking to hire are software engineers, technical program/product managers, database engineers and product developers.
The roles are spread across a number of teams that aim to support the future of payments, particularly within cybersecurity, AI and cloud technologies.
Addressing the skills shortage
While many major tech companies have been laying off staff, there continues to be a concern in the tech industry around talent shortages.
However, Ed McLaughlin, chief technology officer at Mastercard, said that while the tech skills shortage is “absolutely real”, it can also be seen as a tremendous opportunity for companies to think outside the box when it comes to where to grow talent.
“We do a lot of work with local universities to try to provide apprenticeship opportunities, internship opportunities for people so they can pursue that as a career,” he said.
McLaughlin added that it’s funny how broadly the term ‘tech’ is applied to things and said that a bigger focus on more specific disciplines within tech sector is vital.
“Sometimes saying it’s tech doesn’t really capture the disciplines, the skills that people want to have and the passion they have for specific elements within technology.”
McLaughlin added that because tech changes all the time, Mastercard puts a lot of investment into its own employees’ professional development, something Devine echoed.
“Even if you were [at university] two or three years ago, it changes that rapidly. So, I think you can’t just look to universities, it has to be something that we do within the company as well,” she said.
‘You have to think about all dimensions of diversity’
– KELLY DEVINE
“We’ve put a lot of thought into how you create an environment where developers, engineers, whoever it might be, can be successful… It’s training, it’s time to work on the new, exciting technology, because that’s what everyone wants to do.”
As a passionate advocate for diversity in tech, Devine also highlighted the importance of D&I when it comes to expanding the tech workforce.
“We try and think about diversity in its fullest sense and we also try and spend a lot of time thinking about inclusion because you can have a diverse workforce where you’ve got that variety through the door, which is brilliant. But I firmly believe that that only pays off if you then have an inclusive environment where you can genuinely tap into that diversity of views,” she said.
“You have to think about all dimensions of diversity. And then you have to think about how you actually get the most out of the diversity of hires where you don’t have people who still feel that they are underrepresented in terms of their voice.”
Updated, 4.47pm, 29 May 2023: This article was updated to clarify Mastercard’s hiring targets in the coming years.
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