Java Tech Lead - Digital Banking (Remote)

First Citizens Bank; Austin (TX); Remote; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

First Citizens Bank is seeking a Technical Lead to join the Personal & Business Banking Digital Engineering organization. This is a hands-on engineering leadership role, not traditional people management, focusing on building software, solving complex technical challenges, and guiding architecture decisions at scale.

You will bridge agile pods and engineering leadership, partnering with Product Owners, Architects, Scrum Teams, and DevSecOps to ensure scalable, secure, and enterprise-aligned

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree and 8 years in technical work in software or security, or 12 years with a high school diploma.
• Proven track record delivering enterprise-scale applications.
• Deep understanding of modern software architecture and distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across one or more Agile pods delivering customer-facing digital banking capabilities.
• Drive engineering excellence and promote modern software development practices.
• Translate architectural direction into actionable delivery plans and strategies.
• Lead design reviews, code reviews, and architectural decision-making.
• Mentor engineers and influence technical direction without direct management.
• Collaborate with product managers and engineers to deliver business value.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

REST APIs

Event-Driven Architecture

Apache Kafka

Microservices

Distributed systems

Secure development

Education

Bachelor's Degree

High School Diploma or GED with 12 years experience

Tools

GitHub

Azure DevOps

Kubernetes

Terraform

SonarQube

Job description

Overview

This is a remote role that may only be hired in the following location(s): AZ, NC, NJ, TX.

We are looking for an experienced, passionate, and highly technical Technical Lead to join our Personal & Business Banking Digital Engineering organization.

This is not a traditional people management role. Instead, this is a hands-on engineering leadership position designed for someone who loves building software, solving complex technical challenges, influencing architecture decisions, and helping engineering teams deliver exceptional customer experiences at scale.

As a Technical Lead, you will serve as the vital connection between our Agile delivery pods and our broader engineering leadership team. You will partner closely with Product Owners, Engineering Managers, Architects, Scrum Teams, Quality Engineering, DevSecOps, and fellow Technical Leads to ensure our digital banking platforms are scalable, secure, resilient, and aligned with enterprise technology standards.

The ideal candidate is equally comfortable reviewing pull requests, contributing production code, discussing architectural tradeoffs, mentoring engineers, and collaborating with senior technology leaders to shape technical strategy.

This role is perfect for someone who wants to remain deeply involved in technology while expanding their influence across multiple teams and initiatives.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

Technical Leadership

• Provide technical leadership across one or more Agile product pods delivering customer-facing digital banking capabilities.
• Drive engineering excellence and promote modern software development practices.
• Act as the primary technical point of contact between development teams and engineering leadership.
• Translate architectural direction into actionable delivery plans and technical implementation strategies.
• Ensure solutions align with enterprise architecture standards, security requirements, and platform roadmaps.
• Facilitate technical discussions, design reviews, code reviews, and architectural decision-making.
• Identify and proactively address technical risks, bottlenecks, and dependencies.

Hands-On Engineering

• Remain actively involved in software design, development, troubleshooting, and delivery activities.
• Contribute high-quality production code across backend services, APIs, integrations, and digital platforms.
• Lead by example through hands-on participation in complex technical implementations.
• Partner with engineers to resolve critical production issues and performance challenges.
• Drive adoption of coding standards, engineering best practices, and reusable design patterns.
• Review and approve technical designs, pull requests, and implementation approaches.

Architecture & Solution Design

• Design scalable, resilient, cloud-ready, and event-driven solutions.
• Collaborate with enterprise and domain architects to define future-state architectures.
• Lead technical solutioning for new digital banking products, customer journeys, and platform enhancements.
• Promote API-first and event-driven architecture principles across the organization.
• Drive microservices adoption, integration strategies, and system modernization initiatives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and identify opportunities for innovation.

Agile Delivery & Collaboration

• Work closely with Product Managers, Business Analysts, Scrum Masters, and Engineers to deliver business value.
• Participate in backlog refinement, technical estimation, sprint planning, and release planning activities.
• Ensure technical requirements and non-functional requirements are understood and appropriately prioritized.
• Coordinate cross-team dependencies and technical integrations.
• Support successful execution of large-scale initiatives spanning multiple engineering teams.

Engineering Excellence & Quality

• Champion automated testing, quality engineering practices, and continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with Quality Engineering teams to improve automation coverage and product quality.
• Drive improvements in application reliability, performance, scalability, and observability.
• Promote shift-left testing and DevSecOps principles throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Implement and monitor engineering metrics focused on quality, delivery, reliability, and operational excellence.

Mentorship & Technical Influence

• Mentor and coach software engineers across varying experience levels.
• Foster a culture of engineering ownership, learning, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Help teams navigate complex technical decisions and implementation challenges.
• Influence technical direction through collaboration rather than authority.
• Act as a trusted advisor to engineering managers, architects, and senior technology leaders.

Educational Requirements:

Bachelor's Degree and 8 years of experience in Technical work in Application Development, Server Administration, Information Security, or Engineering OR High School Diploma or GED and 12 years of experience in Technical work in Application Development, Server Administration, Information Security, or Engineering

Preferred Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with a proven track record of delivering enterprise-scale applications.
• 2+ years of experience serving as a Technical Lead, Senior Engineer, Lead Developer, or equivalent technical leadership role.
• Deep understanding of modern software architecture and distributed systems.
• Strong experience leading technical discussions and influencing engineering decisions across teams.
• Demonstrated ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Technical Skills

Backend & Platform Engineering

Strong experience with:

• Java
• Spring Boot
• REST APIs and OpenAPI standards
• Event-Driven Architecture
• Apache Kafka
• Microservices architecture
• Distributed systems design
• Secure application development

Front-End Engineering

Experience with one or more:

• Angular
• React
• TypeScript
• Modern web application design
• Component-based UI architecture
• Storybook or similar UI development frameworks

Mobile Development (Nice to have)

Exposure to:

• Swift
• Kotlin
• Mobile application architecture
• Native mobile development practices

DevSecOps & Platform Engineering

Experience working with:

• GitHub
• Azure DevOps
• Kubernetes
• Terraform
• SonarQube
• CI/CD pipelines
• Infrastructure as Code
• Containerization technologies
• Cloud-native engineering practices

Quality Engineering

A level of understanding of automated testing frameworks such as:

• Selenium
• Playwright
• Cypress
• Appium
• Karate

Additional Information

The base pay for this position is generally between $150,000 and $180,000. Actual starting base pay will be determined based on skills, experience, location, and other non-discriminatory factors permitted by law. For some roles, total compensation may also include variable incentives, bonuses, benefits, and/or other awards as outlined in the offer of employment.

Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and First Citizens Bank is committed to providing a competitive, thoughtfully designed and quality benefits program to meet the needs of our associates. More information can be found at https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/benefits.