Application Development Lead Java Back-End Engineer - Vice President

Citigroup Inc.; New York (NY); Presencial; USD 142.000 - 213.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

Citi is seeking an experienced Team Lead- Java Back-End Developer to drive day-to-day engineering execution on the Digital Assets Platform in New York, NY. The role combines hands-on coding with high‑level architectural guidance, ensuring robust, secure, and scalable backend systems.

The ideal candidate has 6–10+ years of backend Java experience, excels in design reviews, and mentors teammates while delivering through cross‑functional collaboration with product and architecture teams.

Formación

• 6+ years hands-on software development experience, backend focus with Java/Spring Boot.
• Experience leading by doing, coding regularly and guiding others.
• Strong ability to conduct thorough code reviews for correctness, security and performance.

Responsabilidades

• Hands-on technical leadership: write, review, and ship production-grade code with the team.
• Own the most complex engineering problems and drive low-level design with authority.
• Drive low-level design sessions, assess architecture, data models, API contracts and error handling.
• Mentor junior engineers, support growth and contribute to hiring and technical interviewing.
• Own delivery: decompose epics, estimate effort, ensure on-time, high-quality delivery.
• Champion engineering excellence: automated tests, CI/CD, observability and reliability.

Conocimientos

Java

Spring Boot

Distributed systems

REST/gRPC APIs

Code reviews

Leadership

Mentoring

Communication

Educación

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Herramientas

Docker

Kubernetes

Descripción del empleo

Role Overview

We are looking for a highly experienced, deeply hands‑on Team Lead- Java Back‑End Developer to drive day‑to‑day engineering execution on the Digital Assets Platform. The successful candidate will focus on core backend/platform software engineering leadership: and write production code regularly, leads by example, enforces engineering rigor, and is the technical backbone that junior and mid‑level engineers rely on for direction, review, and mentorship.

The ideal candidate will bring at least 6 to 10+ years of hands‑on development experience and has "been in the trenches" — someone who can jump into a complex codebase, spot subtle bugs and design flaws during code review, drive low‑level design (LLD) discussions with authority, and unblock the team on the hardest technical problems. This person is expected to be more experienced and technically sharper than the other developers on the team, acting as the de facto technical authority and quality gatekeeper for the squad.

Key Responsibilities

Hands‑On Technical Leadership

• Actively write, review, and ship production‑quality code alongside the team — this is not a purely managerial or coordination role.
• Personally take ownership of the most complex, high‑risk, or ambiguous engineering problems on the platform.
• Set the technical direction for the team's day‑to‑day implementation work, ensuring consistency with overall platform architecture.

Code Quality & Code Review

• Perform rigorous, detailed code reviews across the team's pull requests, catching subtle logic errors, concurrency issues, security gaps, performance bottlenecks, and maintainability problems before they reach production.
• Establish and enforce coding standards, review checklists, and best practices (clean code, SOLID principles, secure coding, testability).
• Act as the final technical quality gate prior to merge/release for critical components.

Low‑Level Design (LLD)

• Drive low‑level design sessions, translating high‑level architecture and requirements into detailed, implementable technical designs (class/module structures, API contracts, data models, sequence flows, error handling strategy).
• Review and challenge design proposals from other engineers, ensuring designs are scalable, resilient, and aligned with platform standards.
• Document key design decisions and trade‑offs for traceability and knowledge sharing.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

• Mentor junior and mid‑level engineers, raising the overall technical bar of the team through pairing, reviews, and structured feedback.
• Identify skill gaps and growth opportunities within the team; contribute to hiring and technical interviewing.

Delivery Ownership

• Drive the team's sprint/iteration execution — decomposing epics into well‑scoped technical tasks, estimating effort, and ensuring on‑time, high‑quality delivery.
• Proactively identify technical risks, bottlenecks, and debt; elevate and resolve issues before they impact delivery timelines.
• Partner closely with the Engineering Team Lead (SVP), Architect, and Product/Business stakeholders to translate requirements into a sound technical execution plan.

Engineering Excellence

• Champion automated testing (unit, integration), CI/CD discipline, observability, and operational readiness for everything the team ships.
• Identify and remediate technical debt, legacy pain points, and recurring production issues.
• Stay current on backend engineering, distributed systems, and platform reliability best practices (deliberately not a smart contract/Web3‑first role — the emphasis is core software engineering excellence).

Qualifications

• 6 -10 years of hands‑on professional software development experience, with demonstrated depth in backend engineering (e.g., Java, Spring Boot, distributed systems, microservices, REST/gRPC APIs).
• Proven track record of leading by doing — an engineer who still codes regularly and is respected for technical depth rather than title alone.
• Strong, demonstrable experience conducting thorough, high‑signal code reviews and catching issues that others miss (correctness, security, performance, edge cases, race conditions).
• Strong command of low‑level design — able to independently produce and critique detailed technical designs, not just high‑level architecture diagrams.
• Experience leading or technically mentoring a team of engineers (formal management experience a plus, but technical leadership is essential).
• Solid understanding of software engineering fundamentals: data structures & algorithms, design patterns, concurrency, database design, API design, and testing practices.
• Experience working in large‑scale, regulated, or enterprise environments (financial services experience strongly preferred).
• Excellent communication skills — able to explain complex technical trade‑offs clearly to both engineers and senior stakeholders.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Preferred

• Prior exposure to blockchain, distributed ledger, or digital asset platforms (as context, not as a primary skill requirement — this role is intentionally weighted toward core engineering depth over Web3/smart contract specialization).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes/OpenShift), and cloud‑native architectures.
• Experience operating in an Agile/Scrum delivery model.
• Prior formal people‑management experience (performance reviews, career development conversations).

Job Family Group:

Technology

Job Family:

Applications Development

Time Type:

Full time

Primary Location:

New York New York United States

Primary Location Full Time Salary Range:

$142,320.00 - $213,480.00

Most Relevant Skills:

Please see the requirements listed above.

Other Relevant Skills:

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

Anticipated Posting Close Date:

Oct 27, 2026

Automated Processing and AI

We use automated processing, including artificial intelligence, for our legitimate business interests (or our reasonable and appropriate business purposes) to identify and align the candidate's skills and abilities with a specific job opening. Additionally, if you so choose, or consent, we can match your skills and abilities to other suitable roles at Citi.

Importantly, all our hiring processes and decisions, including determining your suitability for a role, are conducted, checked, and decided by individuals. Our automated processing and AI do not involve relying on automatic or autonomous decision‑making. Please refer to any Jurisdictional Considerations, with specific provisions for your country (where relevant) for further details.

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