Java/Kotlin Software Engineer – AVP - (Developer Enablement)

Citi; Belfast City District; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working (up to 2 days at home)

Competitive base salary

Pension

Private medical care

Life insurance

Employee assistance programme

Learning & development resources

Generous leave

Job summary

Citi Belfast is seeking a server-side engineer to join the CTO organisation, working on developer platforms and internal tools used by thousands of engineers. You will contribute back-end services, shape architecture, and stay ahead with GenAI in a fast-paced, startup-like environment inside a global bank.

You’ll join a distributed team across Belfast, Canada and London, with a hybrid working model and a strong culture of engineering craftsmanship.

Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering within technical projects.
• Hands-on experience building and running production-grade services.
• Strong server-side engineering skills in Kotlin or Java (Java 21).
• Experience with RESTful APIs and databases (SQL/NoSQL).
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker/Kubernetes).

Responsibilities

• Write code and deliver backend services.
• Contribute high-quality code regularly and set technical standards.
• Influence architectural direction and roadmaps.
• Stay current with GenAI and apply new ideas to products.
• Collaborate across distributed teams to meet requirements.

Skills

Kotlin

Java

REST APIs

Distributed systems

Microservices

Tools

Spring Boot

http4k

ktor

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

Apache Kafka

Docker

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Tekton

Harness

Job description

We’re looking for an enthusiastic & talented server side engineer, to join one our high-impact teams inside Citi’s CTO organisation. You’ll sit within Developer Enablement, a group focused on innovation, developer platforms and internal tools used across the bank, where we experiment and ship fast, like a startup inside a global bank. Our mission is to drive productivity by streamlining/automating processes & make the best tools available for our 30k engineers. At Citi’s scale saving tens of minutes per day, equates to £10,000,000s of savings

We believe happy engineers make the best engineers and are a technology managed department.

Opportunities in CTO:

There are many exciting opportunities for you, and flexibility to move between multiple projects if that’s something you’d enjoy. Two closely related key strategic projects will require your expertise driving solutions are as follows:

SDLC Automation is a greenfield initiative that builds on the success we’ve had in automating the SDLC and takes it further. This blue-sky project looks at ways we can greatly improve the SDLC process at Citi, taking ideas like grading engineering teams and rewarding those who follow best practices, perhaps moving them from manual approval process to an automatic one. The use of Artificial Intelligence is planned to further automate and remove manual human led processes that add toil to the SDLC process

Release on Demand (RoD)is our strategic release management platform that makes it trivial to generate production run books & ServiceNow Changes with the click of a button. Built internally approximately three years ago the platform has quickly become our strategic release generation and deployment tool used across all lines of business. Last year it generated 60k releases and automated the deployment of approx. 65% of them.

RoD enables cultural change within development teams enabling them to move quickly but whilst maintaining quality gates to ensure the correct SDLC and procedural requirements of the firm are upheld, whilst driving industry best practices (DORA)

Why you’ll love working here:

• You get to work in the engineering focused part of the bank, the Chief Technology Office, building tools for other engineers
• You’ll work and lead small, agile team, in an organisation led by technologists and use the latest AI tooling to complete your work.
• You’ll impact the daily experience of tens of thousands of engineers at one of the largest engineering organisations in the world.
• Our culture runs on engineering craftsmanship. Leadership here actually understands what that means. We’re proving what’s possible inside a large organisation, and that means navigating some legacy alongside building the future. If you want everything perfect on day one, this isn’t the right fit. If you want to help us get there, keep reading.
• The team is distributed across Belfast, Canada & London. You’ll work closely with engineers across time zones and partner directly with product and platform leadership.
  

What you will do:

• Write code and deliver. You are a delivery focussed engineer for our back end services.
• That means contributing high-quality code regularly, not just reviewing other people’s. You set the bar through your own work.
• Shape how we build. You’ll have a real voice in our architecture and technical roadmap. Your opinion matters
• Stay ahead of GenAI. This space moves fast. We need someone who follows it seriously, brings new ideas back to the team, and actively applies what they’re learning to the products we build. If you’ve been experimenting with new models, new tooling, or new patterns, that’s exactly the kind of thinking we want in the room.
• Be a team player. Thoughtful code reviews. Unblocking people when they’re stuck. Sharing what you know. Your success here is tied to the team’s success, not just your own output.
• Communicate like it matters. We’re distributed across three continents. Clear, direct, proactive communication isn’t a soft skill here. It’s how the work gets done. You’ll model it.
• What We’re Looking For.
  

What you should have:

A selection of the tools and capabilities required across our platforms. We value muti-disciplined polyglot engineers but also understand and support the need for specialisms too across the wider department.

• Proven experience delivering within technical projects
• Deep, hands-on experience building and running production-grade services. You’re still writing code regularly. You’re good at it
• Strong server-side engineering skills: Kotlin or Java (we’re using Java 21), building and consuming RESTful APIs.
• Proficiency with relational and/or NoSQL databases: Couchbase, PostgreSQL or MongoDB.
  

Highly Desirable skills

• Experience with event-driven architecture.
• Experience with microservice architecture
• Contract first Apis, such as swagger.
• Experience with message queuing systems: Apache Kafka.
• SRE/DevOps – Experience with scalability & Observability
• Understanding of containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with CI/CD tools and automated deployments.
• Comfortable collaborating with product, design, and UI engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver robust backend solutions.
• AI experience is highly desirable but not mandatory

Tools you’ll use(depending on role)

• Server: Kotlin, Java, Spring Boot, http4k, ktor, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Apache Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Tekton, Harness
• Infra: OpenShift, Tekton, Harness,
• Mac or PC - It’s up to you.
• Access to time-saving AI tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cognition.ai’s Devinand Claude Code

What we’ll provide you

By joining Citi Belfast, you will not only be part of a business casual workplace with a hybrid working model (up to 2 days working at home per week), but also receive a competitive base salary (which is annually reviewed), and enjoy a whole host of additional benefits such as:

• 27 days annual leave (plus bank holidays)

• A discretional annual performance related bonus

• Private Medical Care & Life Insurance

• Employee Assistance Program

• Pension Plan

• Paid Parental Leave

• Special discounts for employees, family, and friends

• Access to an array of learning and development resources

Visit ourGlobal Benefitspage to learn more.

Alongside these benefits Citi is committed to ensuring our workplace is where everyone feels comfortable coming to work as their whole self, every day. We want the best talent around the world to be energized to join us, motivated to stay and empowered to thrive.

Job Family Group:

Technology

Job Family:

Applications Development

Time Type:

Full time

Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

Other Relevant Skills

For complementary skills, please see above and/or contact the recruiter.

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.

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