Lead Software Engineer

Working at Citi is far more than just a job. A career with us means joining a team of approximately 219,000 dedicated people from around the globe. At Citi, you’ll have the opportunity to grow your career, give back to your community and make a real impact.

We are looking for an experienced Lead Software Engineer / Technical Architect (C13) to drive the technical design, backend architecture, and engineering execution for Vendor Master Central (VMC)—our enterprise platform responsible for centralizing vendor ecosystems, contracts, service catalogs, and complex data enrichment pipelines across Market Data Services.

This role is backend-first, requiring deep expertise in modern Java microservices, high-volume data ingestion/reconciliation pipelines, relational data architecture, and resilient API design. While the core focus is backend, we are very open to candidates with solid full-stack experience (React/TypeScript) who can champion end-to-end architecture and collaborate seamlessly across the entire stack.

As a senior technical leader, you will champion modern development practices and leverage cutting-edge GenAI tooling (Devin, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) to accelerate engineering velocity and deliver robust, scalable platforms.

• Architect & Scale Core Services: Lead the technical design and implementation of distributed, cloud-ready Java microservices (Java 21/25, Spring Boot) powering high-volume data ingestion, reconciliation, and enrichment.
• Data Pipelines & Ingestion Engines: Architect idempotent data ingestion workflows, transactional staging mechanisms, and validation engines processing heterogeneous financial datasets and hierarchy trees.
• API & Domain Design: Design secure, performant RESTful APIs, domain models, and caching strategies supporting high-concurrency enterprise interfaces and downstream consumers.
• Full-Stack Collaboration: Partner closely with UI engineers on frontend-backend contracts and state synchronization; provide architectural oversight on React/TypeScript integration for candidate profiles with full-stack capability.

• Pioneer AI-Accelerated Engineering: Spearhead team-wide adoption of autonomous and assisted AI engineering tools (e.g., Devin, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) for rapid prototyping, automated code generation, complex refactoring, and test suite creation.
• Code Quality & Best Practices: Enforce modern design patterns, domain-driven design (DDD), comprehensive test automation (TDD/BDD), clean architecture, and CI/CD pipelines.

• Team Mentorship: Lead, coach, and elevate senior engineers (C11/C12) across technical design reviews, coding standards, and architectural decisions.
• Enterprise Controls & Security: Ensure system designs adhere to enterprise security standards, role-based access controls (RBAC), SSO authentication, and complete audit traceability.

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with significant experience architecting and delivering enterprise-grade distributed systems.
• Deep Modern Java Mastery: Expert-level knowledge of Java 21 / 25, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Data, and Hibernate/JPA.
• Data Modeling & Storage: Strong experience in relational database design (PostgreSQL / Oracle / SQL), complex query optimization, indexing strategies, and transactional integrity.
• Pipeline & Ingestion Architecture: Proven track record designing batch/stream data ingestion pipelines, reconciliation logic, and asynchronous processing engines.
• RESTful API Architecture: Extensive experience creating well-documented, versioned, and secure REST APIs (OpenAPI / Swagger).

• Experience or strong familiarity with modern frontend frameworks—specifically React, TypeScript, and modern state management—is a significant plus for driving cohesive, end-to-end architecture.

• Hands-on enthusiasm for modern AI-assisted engineering tools (Devin, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, LLM-driven coding workflows) to drive rapid delivery.
• Strong proficiency with Docker, Kubernetes/OpenShift, CI/CD automation, and cloud-native observability (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry).

• Proven ability to operate with architectural autonomy, translating complex business requirements into elegant technical designs.
• Exceptional problem-solving skills and ability to lead incident resolution, performance tuning, and technical strategy.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, able to articulate technical trade-offs to senior leadership.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

This job description provides a high-level review of the types of work performed. Other job-related duties may be assigned as required.

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Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.