Lead Engineer, Financial Payments (Java)

Atlas Search; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Atlas Search is looking for a Lead Engineer in Financial Payments based in New York City to lead technical roadmapping and solution architecture. This role is vital in managing distributed development teams to build scalable payment processing systems.

The ideal candidate will have 10+ years of software engineering experience, a strong background in Java and AWS, and the capability to deliver secure, mission-critical software products.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in Java.
• 3-5+ years in a technical leadership role managing geographically distributed teams.
• Experience building on AWS, proving success with secure, complex software products.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of engineers, focusing on feature development and code quality.
• Design secure, scalable payment systems using Java and AWS.
• Drive technical decision-making and enforce engineering standards.

Skills

Java

AWS

Node.js

Python

Kubernetes

Event-driven architectures

Microservices

Container architecture

Payment protocols

Tools

Terraform

CloudFormation

DataDog

New Relic

CloudWatch

Job description

Lead Engineer, Financial Payments (Java)

About the Opportunity

Our client, an innovative fintech firm, is seeking a Lead Engineer of Financial Payments (Java) to join their core technology team in New York City. This hands‑on leadership role combines technical roadmapping, solution architecture, and management of distributed development teams to deliver scalable, secure payment processing systems.

The annual base salary range is $180,000 to $210,000. Actual compensation offered to the successful candidate may vary from posted hiring range based upon geographic location, work experience, education, and/or skill level, among other things. Details about eligibility for bonus compensation (if applicable) will be finalized at the time of offer.

Job Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of engineers, overseeing feature development, code reviews, and technical quality across both local and offshore teams
• Design and architect secure, highly scalable payment systems with Java, AWS, and cloud‑native tech
• Drive technical decision‑making, enforce engineering standards, and foster cross‑team collaboration
• Ensure payment solutions comply with security standards and financial industry regulations (PCI‑DSS, SOC2, etc.)
• Collaborate with product, infrastructure, and executive stakeholders to deliver payments integrations and enhancements
• Own the technical roadmap for the payment infrastructure
• Manage incident response, technical troubleshooting, and long‑term system reliability
• Balance feature delivery against technical debt and system health
• Promote effective engineering practices for distributed teams and cross‑functional initiatives

Job Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in Java; exposure to Node.js and Python a plus
• 3-5+ years in a technical leadership role managing geographically distributed teams
• Experience building on AWS (Lambda, Step Functions, ECS/EKS)
• Strong grounding in event‑driven architectures and serverless computing patterns
• Expertise with high‑availability, low‑latency systems, microservices, and container architecture (Kubernetes)
• Financial services, payment systems, or regulated industry background preferred
• Excellent written and verbal communication; proven success leading offshore and cross‑functional teams
• Demonstrated history of delivering secure, complex, mission‑critical software products

Preferred Skills

• Knowledge of payment protocols (ISO20022, SWIFT, ACH, card networks)
• Experience with AWS Step Functions and workflow orchestration
• Familiarity with event sourcing, distributed systems, and observability tools (DataDog, New Relic, CloudWatch)
• Hands‑on exposure to CI/CD and infrastructure‑as‑code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation)
• Deep understanding of security best practices for financial applications

Technical Environment

• Cloud: AWS (Lambda, Step Functions, ECS, EKS, S3, RDS)