Java Microservices Development Lead - Vice President

Citi; Tampa (FL); On-site; USD 114,000 - 171,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental & vision coverage

401(k)

Life, disability insurance

Wellness programs

Paid time off

Job summary

Citi is seeking a Java & Microservices Development Lead – Vice President to architect and lead mission-critical backend systems for real-time payments on a global scale.

You will drive cloud-native Java microservices, utilize Spring Boot and Kafka, and champion AI-assisted development practices to ensure high availability, low latency, and robust security across distributed platforms.

Qualifications

• 10+ years hands-on Java software engineering and architecture.
• Proven track record building production-grade microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud.
• Extensive experience with Kafka or similar messaging systems.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead end-to-end development of high-throughput Java microservices for 24x7 real-time processing.
• Build event-driven streaming architectures using Apache Kafka.
• Lead AI-assisted development lifecycle and tooling to speed delivery while maintaining security/governance.

Skills

Java 17/21

Concurrency & Virtual Threads

Spring Boot / Spring Cloud

Kafka

AI-PDLC tools

Cloud-native architecture

SRE observability

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Agile delivery

Java performance tuning

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

OpenShift

GitHub Copilot

Job description

Citi is looking for a Java & Microservices Development Lead – Vice President to architect, build, and lead the engineering of mission-critical, distributed backend systems that power financial transactions on a global, 24x7 scale. In this role, you will provide technical leadership for high-throughput, low-latency platforms that support real‑time Payments processing. You will drive cloud-native Java microservices using Spring Boot, Kafka, and modern AI-accelerated engineering practices (AI-PDLC, GitHub Copilot, Devin), directly shaping the reliability, performance, and 99.999% availability of critical platforms. You will partner with product managers, enterprise architects, and cross‑functional engineering squads to translate complex business and regulatory requirements into robust, production‑ready solutions.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead the end-to-end development of high-throughput, low-latency Java microservices for 24x7 real-time transaction processing, applying core patterns to ensure zero data loss and uninterrupted availability.
• Build event-driven streaming and messaging architectures using Apache Kafka
• Champion and institutionalize the AI-Assisted Product Development Lifecycle (AI-PDLC) across engineering squads, leveraging generative AI developer tools and autonomous agents (such as GitHub Copilot, Devin, and AI-driven automated testing/code review tools) to accelerate delivery velocity while enforcing firmwide security and governance standards.
• Construct resilient cloud-native services utilizing Spring Boot and Spring Cloud components, establishing centralized configuration management, service discovery, distributed tracing, and mTLS security for financial service-to-service communication.
• Implement modern financial messaging standards and payment protocols, including ISO 20022 (pacs, pain, camt), real-time payment schemes, and industry-standard financial networks, ensuring strict alignment with data security standards and cryptographic controls.
• Optimize data access and persistence tiers across distributed SQL and in-memory caching solutions to maximize throughput and achieve sub-millisecond execution times.
• Apply deep expertise in core Java concurrency, Virtual Threads, memory management, and JVM garbage collection tuning to deliver ultra-performant, thread-safe backend architectures.
• Partner with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) to establish observability standards (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk) and lead performance profiling, chaos engineering experiments, and volume stress testing across all transaction paths.
• Lead technical design reviews and code reviews, providing mentorship and architectural guidance that elevates engineering excellence, code quality, and security posture across multiple squads.
• Guide containerized workload deployment and management on Docker and Kubernetes / OpenShift, supporting modern CI/CD automation and zero-downtime deployment strategies.

Required Qualifications & Skills

• Hands-on Java software engineering and architecture experience of 10+ years, with deep proficiency in Java 17/21, concurrency utilities, Virtual Threads, memory management, and advanced JVM performance tuning.
• Demonstrable track record of designing, developing, and operating production-grade microservices using Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, and reactive programming paradigms.
• Deep expertise in event streaming and messaging architectures using Apache Kafka or RabbitMQ, with practical mastery of partitioning strategies, distributed transactions, and idempotency patterns.
• Practical mastery of microservices architecture patterns
• Hands-on experience integrating AI‑assisted developer tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Devin, AI code analysis tools) and AI-PDLC practices into team delivery workflows.
• Proficiency with containerization and orchestration platforms using Docker and Kubernetes / OpenShift in high-availability environments.
• Competency with Git‑based version control workflows, automated CI/CD pipelines, and Agile delivery methodologies (Scrum/Kanban).
• Exceptional analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, with the ability to influence cross‑functional technical, product, and business leadership.

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

Primary Location

Tampa Florida United States

Primary Location Full Time Salary Range

$113,840.00 - $170,760.00

Citi offers competitive employee benefits, including:

• medical, dental & vision coverage
• 401(k)
• life, accident, and disability insurance
• wellness programs

Citi also offers paid time off packages, including:

• planned time off (vacation)
• unplanned time off (sick leave)
• paid holidays

For additional information regarding Citi employee benefits, please visit citibenefits.com. Available offerings may vary by jurisdiction, job level, and date of hire.

This job description provides a high-level review of the types of work performed. Other job-related duties may be assigned as required.

Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

Anticipated Posting Close Date

Oct 20, 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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