Engineering Lead, Global Instant Payments Platform - Senior Vice President

Citigroup Inc.; Pune District; On-site; INR 7,000,000 - 11,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Company-paid health benefits

Job summary

Citi is seeking a highly experienced engineering leader in Pune, India, to drive architecture and delivery of the Global Instant Payments Platform. This role combines hands-on Java expertise with distributed systems and cloud-native design to support real-time payments at scale.

You will lead architecture reviews, mentor engineers, and collaborate with product, operations, and risk teams to build resilient, low-latency payment services across RTP, FedNow, UPI, and SEPA Instant.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience in payments or fintech.
• Expert-level Java with concurrency, JVM tuning, and low-latency design.
• 5+ years of hands-on AWS experience building cloud-native apps.
• Strong expertise in microservices, event-driven architectures, REST, messaging, and streaming.
• Experience leading engineering teams while staying hands-on in architecture and delivery.
• Familiarity with Agile, CI/CD, observability, and production support.
• Experience using AI-powered engineering tools to improve delivery and quality.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management across a global organization.
• Experience with RTP, FedNow, UPI, SEPA Instant, or similar real-time networks.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, design, and delivery of Citi's Instant Payments platform with hands-on leadership across SDLC.
• Design high-performance payment services for real-time processing at global scale.
• Modernize payment platforms on AWS with microservices, APIs, and automation.
• Build capabilities supporting RTP, FedNow, UPI, SEPA Instant across markets and jurisdictions.
• Architect resilient systems handling millions of daily transactions with security and availability.
• Mentor engineers while engaging in architecture reviews and code quality decisions.
• Collaborate with Product, Operations, Sales to translate requirements into platform features.
• Develop core payment services including orchestration, reconciliation, settlement, monitoring, and recovery.
• Champion automated testing, observability, and secure SDLC practices.
• Leverage AI-enabled tools to boost developer productivity and delivery velocity.

Skills

Java development

Distributed systems

AWS

Microservices

Real-time payments

Low latency

Leadership

CI/CD

Event-driven architectures

Security

Tools

Kafka

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Overview

Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) is seeking a highly experienced and hands-on engineering leader to drive the architecture, development, and delivery of our next-generation Global Instant Payments Platform.

This role is ideal for an accomplished software engineer who enjoys solving complex distributed systems challenges, remains actively involved in architecture and technical design, and wants to build the future of real-time payment infrastructure at global scale. The successful candidate will combine deep payments expertise, low-latency Java engineering, cloud-native architecture, and strong delivery leadership to build resilient, high-performance payment solutions supporting Citi's global clients. The role requires close collaboration with Product, Operations, Infrastructure, Risk, and Engineering teams globally to deliver innovative, scalable, and secure instant payment capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, and delivery of Citi's next-generation Instant Payments platform, providing hands-on technical leadership across the full Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
• Design and develop high-performance payment services using Java, distributed systems principles, and event-driven architectures to support low-latency, real-time transaction processing at global scale.
• Drive the modernization of payment platforms on AWS through cloud-native architectures, microservices, APIs, containerization, and automated infrastructure practices.
• Build and evolve payment capabilities supporting RTP, FedNow, UPI, SEPA Instant, and emerging real-time payment networks across multiple markets and regulatory jurisdictions.
• Architect highly resilient and scalable systems capable of processing millions of transactions daily with demanding requirements for latency, availability, security, and operational resilience.
• Lead and mentor a team of engineers while remaining actively engaged in technical design reviews, architecture decisions, code quality, and resolution of complex engineering challenges.
• Partner with Product, Operations, Sales, and business stakeholders to translate client and market requirements into innovative payment capabilities and platform enhancements.
• Build and enhance core payment platform services including payment orchestration, liquidity management, reconciliation, settlement processing, transaction monitoring, exception management, and recovery capabilities.
• Champion engineering excellence through automated testing, CI/CD, observability, performance engineering, secure software development practices, and measurable quality outcomes.
• Leverage AI-enabled software engineering tools throughout the SDLC to improve developer productivity, code quality, testing effectiveness, platform reliability, and delivery velocity.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience building large-scale payment processing, transaction processing, or financial technology platforms.
• Expert-level Java development experience with deep understanding of concurrency, JVM performance tuning, asynchronous processing, low-latency application design, and distributed systems engineering.
• Proven experience designing and delivering high-throughput, mission-critical systems operating at enterprise scale.
• 5+ years of hands-on AWS experience building, deploying, and operating cloud-native applications in production environments.
• Strong expertise in microservices, event-driven architectures, REST APIs, messaging systems, and streaming technologies such as Kafka.
• Deep understanding of instant payments, payment processing, settlement, reconciliation, liquidity management, transaction lifecycle management, and payment operations.
• Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams while maintaining hands-on involvement in architecture, technical design, and solution delivery.
• Strong experience with Agile delivery, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and production support.
• Experience leveraging AI-powered engineering tools and modern software development practices to accelerate development and improve engineering productivity.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence technical and business decisions across a global organization.

• Experience developing or operating platforms supporting RTP, FedNow, UPI, SEPA Instant, Faster Payments, Visa Direct, Mastercard Send, or similar real-time payment networks.
• Knowledge of global payment regulations, operational resiliency requirements, and financial services risk controls.

Why Join Citi

Join a team shaping the future of global money movement and real-time payments. You'll have the opportunity to build cloud-native payment infrastructure at global scale, solve complex low-latency distributed systems challenges, influence the evolution of instant payments worldwide, and leverage AI-powered engineering capabilities to deliver the next generation of payment innovation.

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Job Family Group:

Technology

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Job Family:

Applications Development

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Time Type:

Full time

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Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

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Other Relevant Skills

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

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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.

View Citi’s EEO Policy Statement and the Know Your Rights poster.