Director - Technical Engineering Lead (Full stack)

Citigroup Inc.; Pune District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 9,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Citigroup Inc. is seeking a Technology Director to architect and lead a foundational API-based payments platform.

You will own the multi-year technical roadmap, champion AI-first engineering, and scale a global team to deliver high-availability, cloud-native systems across geographies with robust regulatory compliance. Leaders with 15+ years of experience in enterprise-grade applications, multi-region architectures, and strong Java/Spring Boot expertise are encouraged to apply.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering and technology leadership experience including hands-on leadership of enterprise-grade, high-traffic applications.
• Deep expertise designing and operating highly available, multi-region distributed systems with data residency and DR strategies.
• Proficiency in Java, Spring Boot, REST/gRPC, and event-driven systems using Kafka.
• Full-stack fluency across front-end and back-end technologies and cloud-native infrastructure.
• 8+ years leading globally distributed engineering teams across geographies and regulatory contexts.
• Experience with CI/CD, TDD, and modern tooling (JUnit, JMeter, Mockito, Jenkins, GitHub Actions).

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end technical strategy and multi-year roadmap for a foundational payments infrastructure platform.
• Design and deliver highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems across regions with data sovereignty and regulatory compliance.
• Drive an AI-first engineering culture with ML-powered decisioning and automation.
• Lead architecture reviews, microservices design, cloud deployments, and API development.
• Manage and develop a global team of 50+ engineers and architects across geographies.
• Partner with risk and compliance to embed security controls and audit-ready practices.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

Microservices

Distributed systems

Cloud-native

AI/ML integration

Leadership

Agile/SAFe

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Kafka

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Kubernetes

Docker

OpenShift

Job description

Citi's Payments Technology group is hiring a Technology Director to architect and lead one of the critical API based shared services platform. This platform sits at the intersection of engineering ambition and real-world financial impact - for a wide range of internal and external consumers. This is a rare opportunity for a hands-on engineering leader to own a multi-year technical roadmap, build and scale a world-class global engineering organization, and deliver AI-first, cloud-native systems that operate with the highest standards of availability across multiple geographies and regulatory environments. If you are energized by hard engineering problems, thrive at the intersection of technical depth and organizational scale, and want your work to matter at a global level - this role is built for you.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end technical strategy and multi-year roadmap for a foundational payments infrastructure platform - making architectural decisions that determine how a high-throughput, multi-consumer API ecosystem evolves across global markets.
• Design and deliver highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems across multiple geographic regions, with architectures that maintain platform continuity, data sovereignty compliance, and consistent service levels across jurisdictions with differing regulatory requirements.
• Drive an AI-first engineering culture - embedding intelligent automation, ML-powered decisioning, and LLM tooling into both the platform and the team's day-to-day engineering practices to accelerate delivery velocity and raise the quality bar.
• Architect and govern a high-performance, API-first platform that acts as a critical dependency for multiple payment processors - serving a diverse ecosystem of internal and external consumers across payment types ranging from real-time instant payments to high-value cross-border flows.
• Lead, grow, and develop a global engineering organization of 50+ engineers and architects - building a team environment where technical craft, accountability, and continuous improvement are the standard.
• Stay hands-on in architecture reviews, code quality, and technical decision-making - providing direct engineering guidance on microservices design, cloud-native deployment, distributed systems patterns, and API development.
• Partner with risk, compliance, and infrastructure teams to embed security controls, disaster recovery planning, and audit-ready practices across all operating regions - ensuring the platform meets regulatory obligations without compromising engineering agility.
• Translate platform strategy into clear executive communications for senior business and technology leadership, while keeping engineering teams grounded in purpose, priorities, and delivery outcomes.

Required qualifications & skills

• 15+ years of software engineering and technology leadership experience, with at least 10 years in hands-on leadership of enterprise-grade, high-traffic applications - this is a hands on technical leader role, and architectural decisions are made by someone who can build.
• Demonstrated expertise designing and operating highly available, multi-region distributed systems - including active-active and active-passive topologies, data residency controls, disaster recovery strategies, and cross-jurisdictional regulatory compliance architecture.
• Deep hands-on proficiency in Java, Spring Boot, with practical experience building microservices, REST APIs, gRPC , and event-driven systems using Apache Kafka or equivalent high-throughput messaging platforms.
• Fluency across the full engineering stack - front-end (Angular, JavaScript, HTML, CSS), back-end (Java, Spring), data stores (Oracle, MongoDB), and containerized cloud-native infrastructure (Kubernetes, Docker, OpenShift, public cloud).
• Minimum 8 years leading globally distributed engineering teams, with the ability to set technical direction, drive delivery accountability, and develop engineering talent across multiple geographies and regulatory contexts.
• Expertise in CI/CD, test-driven development, and modern engineering tooling - including JUnit, JMeter, Mockito, Cucumber, Jenkins, and GitHub Actions - applied consistently to maintain engineering quality at scale.

• Champion an AI-first hands-on engineering culture - embedding intelligent automation, predictive analytics, NLP-driven client interactions, and ML-powered exception management into the ISW platform to drive operational efficiency and client satisfaction.
• Strong stakeholder management skills - experience navigating complex, matrixed organizations and driving alignment across business, technology, and operations
• Proven ability to attract, develop, and retain top engineering talent in a competitive market
• Experience operating in Agile/SAFe delivery frameworks at enterprise scale, with a bias for continuous delivery and iterative value creation

Beneficial skills & qualifications

• Experience within payments technology or broader financial services, with familiarity across payment types such as real-time payments, high-value transactions, or cross-border flows and their associated regional regulatory regimes.
• Hands-on experience integrating ML or LLM capabilities into production platforms - including predictive analytics, NLP-driven workflows, or ML-powered exception handling at scale.
• Working knowledge of data residency, data sovereignty, and cross-border regulatory frameworks, applied within large-scale distributed platform architecture.
• Practical use of AI-assisted development tooling to measurably improve engineering team productivity and code quality.

Education:

• Bachelor's degree/University degree or equivalent experience
• Master's degree preferred

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.

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