Lead Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Senior Vice President

Citi; Chennai District; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Citi in Chennai seeks an experienced Lead Forward Deployed Engineer to drive CI/CD, testing, and safe automated deployments. You will coordinate the regional FDE team and lead by example in DevOps and SRE practices, with roughly 70% coding and configuration work.

The role emphasizes building automated, observable deployments, secure coding, and rapid release cadence for development teams, while upgrading runtimes and libraries and enforcing best practices.

Qualifications

• Several years of experience with Test-Driven Development (TDD) using multiple test frameworks.
• Really excellent understanding of automation testing approaches and AI-assisted outcomes.
• Proficiency in JVM languages and optionally TypeScript.
• Highest quality coding skills and safe practices for critical systems.

Responsibilities

• Engage with development teams facing challenges achieving a safe, rapid release cadence.
• Hands-on work including testing, data masking, and runtime upgrades.
• Containerize applications and upgrade open-source libraries to latest major versions.
• Implement continuous library updates using Renovate and improve security patterns.
• Introduce standard observability patterns and enhanced logging/review processes.
• Automate deployment processes, including automated database changes with Liquibase and configuration with Ansible.

Skills

TDD

Java

JVM languages

Docker

OpenShift

CI/CD

Secure coding

Gradle/Maven/npm

RedHat Linux

Spring

Ansible

AI coding

TypeScript

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Gradle

Maven

npm

Liquibase

Job description

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced, hands-on Lead Forward Deployed Engineer in Chennai to act as an evangelist for continuous integration, testing, and safe, automated deployments and to coordinate the activities of the regionally deployed FDE team. This is a practical DevOps and SRE role for a practitioner who leads by example to make change safe and easy for development teams. The position is roughly 70% coding and configuration.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct targeted engagements with development teams facing challenges getting to safe and rapid release cadence, or struggling with vulnerability resolution.
• Perform hands‑on work including, but not limited to:
• Wrapping the application in a suite of well‑designed tests, most of which can run locally, including smoke tests to be run as part of the deployment process.
• Sourcing and integrating appropriate test data, implementing data masking in lower environments
• Upgrading to supported runtimes (generally Java or NPM).
• Containerizing applications where feasible.
• Upgrading open‑source libraries to their latest available major versions (e.g., migrating from Spring 2). Upgrading to the latest version of all dependencies, whether installed software, libraries, internal code, base images or operating system. Implementing processes that allow us seamlessly to stay current
• Implementing continuous library updates using Renovate.
• Introducing best practice source control and branch management
• Improving code review processes
• Ensuring best practice security patterns, secrets management, authentication and authorisation
• Simplifying and automating application deployment processes, including automated database changes with Liquibase and installed software with Ansible.
• Introducing standard observability patterns.
• Overhauling exception handling and logging.
• Implementing resilient hot-hot cross-datacenter deployment topologies.

Required Qualifications

• Several years of experience with Test-Driven Development (TDD) using multiple test frameworks.
• Really excellent understanding of the different approaches to automation testing and an ability to choose the best approach and drive outcomes with AI support
• Proficiency in JVM languages and optionally TypeScript.
• Highest quality coding skills
• An excellent understanding of safe practices for critical systems, including deployment architecture and observability
• At home with multiple continuous integration and deployment systems
• Excellent understanding of secure coding practices
• Competent with Docker and Openshift
• Actively embracing AI coding
• Comfortable with build automation tools such as Gradle, Maven, and npm.
• Competent with (RedHat) Linux
• Spring framework skills are advantageous.
• Ansible skills are advantageous

Recommended Qualifications

• 12+ years of relevant experience
• Experience in applications development
• Experience in management
• Experience managing global technology teams
• Working knowledge of industry practices and standards
• Consistently demonstrates clear and concise written and verbal communication

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.

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.

If you are a person with a disability and need a reasonable accommodation to use our search tools and/or apply for a career opportunity review Accessibility at Citi.

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