Senior Lead Software Engineer, Payment Systems - Vice President

Citi's Core Payment Systems team is looking for a Senior Lead Software Engineer to architect and drive the modernization of global payment processing platforms that move USD 4 trillion in client transactions every day. In this critical technical leadership role, you will define the engineering vision for resilient, high-throughput microservices that sit at the heart of Citi's transaction infrastructure — spanning 160 countries and over 140 currencies. Sitting within Citi's Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) business, one of the most expansive financial services networks in the world, you will shape the next generation of payment technology at a scale few engineering roles can match.

Responsibilities

• Lead the full software development lifecycle for mission-critical payment applications, from initial architecture through to deployment and ongoing production ownership.
• Design and build high-throughput, low-latency microservices using Java 8+, Spring Boot, and cloud-native principles to power global payment processing at enterprise scale.
• Architect active-active multi-region failover strategies, zero-downtime release models, and blue-green or canary deployment pipelines to achieve and sustain 99.99%+ system availability.
• Champion the adoption of Domain-Driven Design (DDD), event-driven architecture, and containerization using Docker and Kubernetes/OpenShift to modernize legacy payment platforms.
• Define and enforce API standards for RESTful and event-based interfaces, ensuring every integration is consistent, secure, and built to scale.
• Mentor and guide a cross-functional engineering team, establishing code review practices and raising the bar for technical quality, reliability, and innovation across the team.
• Integrate AI-powered developer tools and AI/ML capabilities — including anomaly detection, intelligent test generation, and observability platforms — into production payment workflows to accelerate delivery and improve system intelligence.
• Partner with product managers, business analysts, and operations teams to translate complex financial requirements into scalable, maintainable technical solutions.

Required Qualifications & Skills

• 6+ years of software engineering experience delivering complex, enterprise-scale applications, with at least 3 years in a technical leadership role setting direction for development teams.
• Expert-level command of Java and the Spring Boot framework for building and operating production microservices, alongside solid front-end capability in Angular, HTML5, and CSS3.
• Deep practical knowledge of resilience engineering patterns including Circuit Breakers, Saga orchestration for distributed transactions, and idempotent API design applied to high-throughput payment pipelines.
• Hands-on experience with messaging and event-streaming platforms such as Apache Kafka or RabbitMQ, and with containerization technologies including Docker and Kubernetes.
• Proficiency across both relational databases such as Oracle and NoSQL databases such as MongoDB, with the ability to select and optimize the right data layer for a given use case.
• Solid grasp of CI/CD pipeline design, automated testing strategies, and modern DevOps practices that support continuous, zero-disruption delivery.
• Demonstrated ability to adopt and scale AI-powered development tools — such as GitHub Copilot or equivalent LLM-based platforms — within an enterprise engineering team to measurably improve delivery velocity.
• Experience establishing end-to-end observability stacks including distributed tracing, real-time alerting, and production dashboards across complex, microservices-based environments.

Beneficial Skills & Qualifications

• Familiarity with financial services or payments industry standards such as SWIFT, ISO 20022, or clearing and settlement systems.
• Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities such as predictive alerting or intelligent test generation into regulated, production financial systems.
• Exposure to AI-driven observability platforms to maintain visibility and proactive response across distributed payment ecosystems.

What We Offer

At Citi, you will work on systems that matter — processing trillions of dollars in payments for 80% of the Global Fortune 500, more than 1,100 public sector organizations, and thousands of financial institutions across the globe. This is an opportunity to lead at genuine scale, backed by a team that values engineering quality, continuous learning, and real impact on global financial infrastructure.

• A hybrid working model with 3 days in the office and 2 days working remotely, giving you flexibility alongside meaningful in-person collaboration.
• Strategic technical ownership over global payment infrastructure that underpins some of the most consequential financial flows in the world.
• Access to Citi's TTS Innovation Labs, where engineers collaborate with clients to build and pilot next-generation financial technology solutions.
• Continuous learning and professional development resources to keep you at the forefront of engineering practices, including AI-accelerated development tooling.
• Competitive financial reward and wellbeing benefits calibrated to senior engineering talent.
• Broad exposure across a global business operating in 160 countries, with the opportunity to collaborate with world-class engineering, product, and operations teams.

Job Family Group:

Technology

Job Family:

Applications Development

Time Type:

Full time

Primary Location Full Time Salary Range:

$120,800.00 - $170,800.00

Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

Other Relevant Skills

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

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.

Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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