If you are in technical ranks and on a product team it will feel like slave labor. Many folks they bring over on a work Visa that can't leave a company for 5 years. Then they work them to death. If you are not on a product team you likely will be just managing propaganda and branding your team. More work is spend on saying "look what I did" at MasterCard than actually doing work unless you are on a product team.
On a product team it is pretty much working 24x7 to get the product out the door on a shoe string budget. Cowboy style of delivery where you throw something together and pull the trigger to get it into production and hope for the best. Tehnical folks are required to be available ALL of the time. Long hours in the middle of the night and all night on many occasions. No overtime pay unless you are consulting but if you record what you work, they'll get rid of you and get someone you will work more but report less. Leadership does not typically work more than 50 hours a week where technical resources can be working ALL of the time. The greatest caution I can give you if you decide to work for MasterCard is be positive always and never make a negative comment or be too objective. Roll with the flow and stay away from the front of the bus. Extremely political climate with low technical aptitude individuals in the technical ranks. The culture for technical folks is to get a bunch of people in a room and have them fight it out. The best salesman wins vs. the most intelligent one or the one with the most experience. If you have a sales background with just a generalist understanding of technology, you'll do great at MasterCard. If you are a specialist with experience vs. just reading something and selling it, you'll go crazy. Nothing worse than having more technical vs. sales skills in the MasterCard environment. Other largest con I can think of is that you will receive no pay for performance at all. It is entirely based on what project you are working on. Little in the way of career growth at MasterCard. This is a consulting environment and nothing more. You will not grow. Though I'm an SBL, I am one of the few that lead and the pressures for shoestring budget are ridiculous.
