Engineering Lead – Payments Sanctions Platform

Citi • Tampa, FL

2d • $141,440 - $212,160 • Onsite

About The Position

The Engineering Lead – Payments Sanctions Platform is a senior-level individual contributor and technical architect trusted to define the architectural direction of Citi's sanctions screening infrastructure within the payments ecosystem at one of the world's most consequential financial institutions. This is not a role for those content with maintaining the status quo. The ideal candidate brings a rare combination of deep technical mastery and systems-level thinking — someone who can architect resilient, AI-powered microservices that power real-time sanctions screening across high-volume payment transactions, and translate that work into meaningful outcomes for Citi's clients, regulators, and partners across the globe. As a senior technical leader on the Payments Sanctions Platform team, this professional will be at the forefront of Citi's compliance technology evolution, shaping platforms that are not only performant and secure, but self-healing, intelligent, and built to withstand the highest regulatory scrutiny. In this role, the successful candidate will operate at the intersection of deep technical expertise and informal leadership — collaborating with cross-functional teams, compliance and sanctions officers, product owners, and senior stakeholders to deliver solutions that are as accurate as they are resilient. They will drive the adoption of cutting-edge methodologies, mentor and advise engineers across the team, and ensure every technical decision reflects Citi's unwavering commitment to regulatory compliance, resilience, and client trust. This is an opportunity to build something that matters — at a scale few institutions can offer, while remaining hands-on with the architecture and technology itself.

Requirements

• 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, with a strong track record of individual technical contribution in enterprise-grade payments, sanctions screening, or financial crime compliance systems
• Demonstrated Subject Matter Expert (SME) in applications development using Java technologies, including Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, and reactive programming frameworks, applied within payments or sanctions/compliance screening platforms
• Proficiency in programming languages including Java, Python, with deep hands-on experience designing, building, and maintaining enterprise-scale sanctions screening or payments platforms across complex distributed systems
• Experience designing and implementing resilient microservices architectures using patterns such as circuit breakers, bulkheads, and active-active replication to achieve continuous, high-availability performance for mission-critical, real-time screening workloads
• Experience with event-driven and message-based architectures using Apache Kafka or equivalent platforms, including the design and operation of high-throughput, real-time transaction screening data pipelines
• Working knowledge of sanctions screening concepts, including watchlist matching engines, fuzzy-matching/false-positive reduction techniques, and applicable sanctions regimes (e.g., OFAC, EU, UN)
• Understanding of the payments processing lifecycle (authorization, clearing, settlement, reconciliation) and how sanctions screening integrates into that flow, along with associated risk, fraud, and compliance considerations
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD tools including Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, with experience automating build, test, and deployment workflows in regulated payments or compliance environments
• Proficiency with relational and NoSQL databases such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Oracle, or Redis, including performance tuning, query optimization, and schema design for high-volume transactional and screening data
• Demonstrated experience leveraging Artificial Intelligence tools and technologies — including GitHub Copilot, Claude, or Devin — to accelerate development, improve code quality, and enhance engineering productivity
• Experience implementing monitoring and observability solutions using Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, or Splunk to ensure system reliability, performance visibility, and rapid incident response for sanctions platforms with strict SLA requirements
• Strong systems analysis skills, with the ability to translate complex sanctions/compliance business requirements and regulatory constraints into scalable software solutions
• Demonstrated ability to informally lead, mentor, and advise engineers on technical best practices, architecture decisions, and career growth, without direct people-management responsibility
• Familiarity with sanctions and payments industry regulations and standards (e.g., OFAC, EU/UN sanctions regimes, PCI-DSS, AML/KYC transaction monitoring) is a plus
• Relationship and consensus-building skills, with experience influencing technical outcomes across compliance, sanctions/AML, risk, and operations stakeholders

Responsibilities

• Lead integration of functions to meet goals, deploy new sanctions screening capabilities, and enhance real-time transaction screening workflows
• Analyze complex business processes, system processes, and sanctions/regulatory standards (e.g., OFAC, EU, UN, and other applicable sanctions lists; watchlist screening protocols) to define and develop solutions to high-level problems
• Serve as the senior technical expert on sanctions platform architecture, providing advanced technical guidance on assignments involving large budgets, cross-functional projects, or multiple concurrent initiatives within the payments sanctions domain
• Develop application methodologies and architectural standards for program analysis, design, coding, testing, debugging, and implementation of sanctions screening capabilities
• Apply advanced knowledge of core system flows and comprehensive knowledge of multiple platform areas to achieve technology goals across the sanctions screening platform
• Consult with compliance officers, sanctions/AML teams, and business stakeholders to identify system function specifications and incorporate them into overall system design
• Allocate work and act as a technical advisor/coach to developers, analysts, and new team members, without formal people-management responsibility
• Influence and negotiate with senior leaders, compliance stakeholders, and external parties on technical direction and architectural decisions
• Appropriately assess risk when business decisions are made, demonstrating particular consideration for the firm's reputation and safeguarding Citigroup, its clients and assets, by driving compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, adhering to Policy, applying sound ethical judgment regarding personal behavior, conduct and business practices, and escalating, managing and reporting control issues with transparency
• Resilient Microservices Architecture: Design and build fault-tolerant, loosely coupled microservices using patterns like circuit breakers, bulkheads, and active-active replication to ensure 99.99% continuous availability for mission-critical, real-time sanctions screening of payment transactions
• AI-Driven Self-Healing & False-Positive Reduction: Integrate AI/ML models for predictive scaling, real-time anomaly detection, automated self-healing, and intelligent false-positive reduction in watchlist screening matches, proactively mitigating system failures and screening inefficiencies
• Event-Driven Screening Pipelines: Develop high-throughput, event-driven architectures (e.g., using Apache Kafka) that seamlessly ingest and screen payment/transaction data against sanctions watchlists in real time, without compromising core service availability or introducing screening delays
• Sanctions Regulatory & Operational Risk: Ensure platform design and engineering practices support compliance with applicable sanctions regulations and standards (e.g., OFAC, EU, UN sanctions regimes), as well as broader payments regulations such as PCI-DSS and AML/KYC transaction monitoring

Benefits

• medical
• dental & vision coverage
• 401(k)
• life, accident, and disability insurance
• wellness programs
• paid time off packages, including planned time off (vacation), unplanned time off (sick leave), and paid holidays

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior