Senior Java Lead Engineer

Citigroup Inc.; Chennai; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Citigroup Inc. is seeking an experienced Java Technical Lead (C12) to drive architecture, design, and delivery of high-throughput enterprise systems. You will lead multi-disciplinary teams to evolve microservices, streaming pipelines, and secure cloud-native deployments.

You will mentor engineers, enforce coding standards and testing, own non-functional requirements, and partner with security, infrastructure, and product teams to translate complex business needs into robust technical roadmaps.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related discipline.
• 10+ years of total software engineering experience, with leadership exposure.
• 2+ years in a technical leadership or module lead capacity.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design, system decomposition, and development of mission-critical microservices and event-driven architectures.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Security, and Infrastructure teams to ensure alignment with blueprints and standards.
• Own technical governance, including architectural reviews, coding standards, automated testing frameworks, and non-functional requirements.

Skills

Core Java

Spring Framework

REST APIs

Kafka

Oracle DB

MongoDB

Docker

Kubernetes

OpenAPI/Swagger

DDD / Microservices

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s in CS/IT

Tools

IBM MQ/JMS

OpenShift

Jenkins

Job description

Business / Organization Overview

We are seeking an experienced and visionary Java Technical Lead (C12) to join our Enterprise Engineering team. In this role, you will be responsible for leading the design, implementation, and architectural evolution of high-throughput, mission-critical enterprise systems. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional architecture, product, and infrastructure teams to build scalable, resilient, and secure microservices and distributed event-driven platforms.

Role Summary

As a C12 Technical Lead, you will combine hands-on technical execution with engineering leadership. You will drive architectural decisions, govern development standards, mentor engineering talent, and deliver end-to-end resilient back-end and distributed messaging solutions. You will champion engineering excellence, modern DevOps practices, and cloud-native containerized delivery.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Lead the technical design, system decomposition, and development of mission-critical microservices and event-driven architectures.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Security, and Infrastructure teams to ensure alignment with organizational blueprints, compliance benchmarks, and engineering standards.
• Own technical governance, including architectural reviews, coding standards, automated testing frameworks, and non-functional requirements (resilience, scalability, low latency, fault tolerance).

Hands-on Engineering & Delivery

• Design and implement robust, high-performance back-end services using Core Java, Spring Boot, and RESTful APIs.
• Build and optimize event streaming and message-oriented middleware patterns using Apache Kafka and IBM MQ / JMS.
• Architect and tune high-volume data persistence layers across relational databases (Oracle) and NoSQL document stores (MongoDB).
• Drive containerization and deployment strategies targeting modern enterprise cloud platforms (ECS / Red Hat OpenShift).

Engineering Excellence & Mentorship

• Conduct rigorous code reviews, enforce unit/integration test coverage standards, and eliminate technical debt.
• Mentor and coach junior and mid-level developers, fostering a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Lead root-cause analysis (RCA) and performance troubleshooting for complex production incidents and distributed system bottlenecks.

Agile & DevOps Collaboration

• Drive end-to-end CI/CD automation, shift-left security (SAST/DAST, dependency scanning), and containerized deployments.
• Work closely with Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and Business Stakeholders in an Agile/Scrum delivery model to translate complex business requirements into clear technical roadmaps and epics.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related discipline.
• 10+ years of total software engineering experience, with at least 2 years in a technical leadership or module lead capacity.

Primary (Core) Skills & Competencies

• Core Java & Frameworks: Deep expertise in Java (Java 11 / 17 / 21), Concurrency, Multithreading, JVM internals, Memory Management, and Garbage Collection tuning.
• Spring Ecosystem: Comprehensive experience with Spring Framework (Spring Boot, Spring Data, Spring Security, Spring Cloud).
• API & Integration: Extensive experience designing and developing RESTful Web Services, OpenAPI/Swagger specifications, and contract-driven API patterns.
• Messaging & Event Streaming: Strong hands-on implementation experience with Apache Kafka (producers, consumers, partitions, fault handling) and enterprise message queues (IBM MQ / JMS).
• Database Engineering: Relational: Oracle DB (complex SQL, PL/SQL, schema design, index tuning, transaction isolation). NoSQL: MongoDB (data modeling, indexing strategies, aggregation pipelines, performance tuning).
• Design Patterns & Clean Code: Strong grounding in SOLID principles, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), Distributed Transactions, Sagas, and Microservices design patterns.

Secondary Skills & Familiarity (Highly Desirable)

• Containerization & Platforms: Hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and enterprise container platforms such as ECS / Red Hat OpenShift.
• Frontend / Full-Stack Exposure: Familiarity with modern frontend development using Angular, React JS.
• Business Process Management: Exposure to enterprise workflow engines such as IBM Business Automation Workflow (BAW) / BPM.
• Application Servers & Middleware: Understanding of legacy or hybrid runtime environments including IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS / Liberty).
• CI/CD & DevOps: Working knowledge of modern deployment pipelines, Jenkins/Tekton/Harness, Git, Maven/Gradle, and code quality tools (SonarQube, Snyk).

Leadership & Behavioral Competencies

• Problem Solving: Exceptional analytical and debugging skills with a proven track record of resolving complex distributed systems challenges.
• Communication: Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to articulate technical tradeoffs to non-technical business partners.
• Ownership & Drive: Demonstrated ability to independently lead engineering initiatives from ideation to production rollout.
• Collaboration: High team spirit and emotional intelligence to work across globally distributed engineering teams.

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.

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