Java Microservices Development Lead - Vice President

Citi • Tampa, FL

1d • $113,840 - $170,760 • Onsite

About The Position

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.

Requirements

• 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.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree preferred

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.

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: Executive