Lead Backend Engineer (Java/Cloud), Vice President

Overview of the Role

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

As a bank with a brain and a soul, Citi creates economic value that is systemically responsible and in our clients’ best interests. As a financial institution that touches every region of the world and every sector that shapes your daily life, our Enterprise Operations & Technology teams are charged with a mission that rivals any large tech company. Our technology solutions are the foundations of everything we do from keeping the bank safe, managing global resources, and providing the technical tools our workers need to be successful to designing our digital architecture and ensuring our platforms provide a first-class customer experience. We reimagine client and partner experiences to deliver excellence through secure, reliable, and efficient services.

Our commitment to diversity includes a workforce that represents the clients we serve from all walks of life, backgrounds, and origins. We foster an environment where the best people want to work. We value and demand respect for others, promote individuals based on merit, and ensure opportunities for personal development are widely available to all. Ideal candidates are innovators with well-rounded backgrounds who bring their authentic selves to work and complement our culture of delivering results with pride. If you are a problem solver who seeks passion in your work, come join us. We’ll enable growth and progress together.

The Lead Backend Engineer (Java/Cloud) is a strategic professional who stays abreast of developments within own field and contributes to directional strategy by considering their application in own job and the business. Recognized technical authority for an area within the business. Requires basic commercial awareness. There are typically multiple people within the business that provide the same level of subject matter expertise. Developed communication and diplomacy skills are required in order to guide, influence and convince others, in particular colleagues in other areas and occasional external customers. Significant impact on the area through complex deliverables. Provides advice and counsel related to the technology or operations of the business. Work impacts an entire area, which eventually affects the overall performance and effectiveness of the sub-function/job family.

Responsibilities:

  • Accountable for executing and driving results on large-scale efforts or multiple smaller efforts and serving as a development lead for most medium and large projects. This includes expertise with application development methodologies and standards for program analysis, design, coding, testing, debugging and implementation.
  • Accountable for exhibiting a strong understanding of client core business functions.
  • Required to support situations in which end user consultation is required to identify system function specifications and incorporate them into overall system design and delivery. Additionally, utilize comprehensive knowledge of multiple areas within technology to achieve technological objectives.
  • Independent work style, requiring little or no guidance by more senior developers. Decisions will make a significant, measurable impact on the business goals for the client organization. During team discussions you will play a significant role with TPMs and engineering managers to determine potential risks to a schedule.
  • Assist in the planning and managing of application development assignments generally involving large budgets, cross functional projects or multiple projects. This includes effectively understanding and analyzing both technical and business risks and impact.
  • Expected to effectively communicate those risks to the business owners, so that they can make informed decisions.
  • Accountable for providing guidance on architecturally significant efforts during the preplanning phase, and ensuring principles and best practices are followed prior to initiation of work. In doing so, closely watch and evaluate Digital roadmaps, including impacts to support upcoming journeys.
  • Publish design review extensions, and provide documented guidance aligned to sprint plans and timelines.
  • Be part of the design review board that will focus on the design process, search for generic patterns, and, at the same time, share best practices across the organization.
  • Publish design patterns across lines of business and domain commonalities. Drive design reviews for Next Gen Architecture (NGA) and Plan of Record (POR) projects, supporting design principles and best practices.
  • Participate in micro services and NGA code reviews.
  • Empower SDEs and their teams by mentoring and coaching.
  • Have a comprehensive understanding of the business domain, the systems, and the products in your space. Understand their accountabilities, boundaries, limitations, scale factors and the reasons behind architectural decisions.
  • Provide a long-term perspective for business and technology choices; using technical judgment to vet architecture as required.
  • Able to direct teams on how to develop and deliver systems that are efficient with resource usage such as hardware, runtime, performance, load, and memory requirements.
  • Responsible for broader design decisions and development of long-term strategies that significantly influence the development process and standards.
  • Accountable for Design Reviews of Agile and Plan of Record (POR) projects as well as accountable for Code Reviews of Next Gen Architecture (NGA) projects and are expected to elaborate, promote and communicate Design Patterns applicable to NGA architectures and solutions.
  • Accountable for providing architectural guidance to the SDE’s based on best practices and in alignment with CTO guidelines and platform.
  • Drive clarity and work with complete independence as business and or technical strategy is not defined.
  • Provide the corresponding architectural guidance, and conduct design reviews and code reviews based on the projects assigned to your LOB. The product definition and technical planning is out of scope.
  • Accountable for the overall strategy and for driving the teams inside and outside of your organization to deliver expected results. Drive mindful discussion with business and technical stakeholders that lead to timely decisions. Participate in discussions to drive smart trade-off decisions that balance efforts, delivery timelines, features, and technical constraints. Identify and remove blockers and always find the path forward in challenging situations.
  • Create plans that have a clear path to delivery. Solve for dependencies between agile and waterfall delivery efforts. Help your teams organize for delivery while maximizing resources for the greater good of the Digital organization. Understand engineering best practices and apply best practices to the software development lifecycle (SDLC)
  • Accountable for Design Reviews for Citi Agile and POR projects as well as Code Reviews for the NGA projects. Accountable for providing architectural guidance to the SDE’s based on best practices and in alignment with CTO guidelines and platform. Elaborate, promote and communicate Design Patterns applicable to NGA architectures and solutions.
  • Elaborate, bring and communicate clear metrics on Design Reviews, Code Reviews, CI/CD and Design Patterns adoption.
  • Communicate progress, anticipate bottlenecks, provide escalation management, identify, assess, track and mitigate issues/risks at multiple levels. Recognize discordant views and take part in constructive dialog to resolve them.
  • Demonstrate the ability to implement continuous improvement and the induction of new technology. Demonstrate examples of influence in scrum teams beyond your own area of focus.
  • 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.

Recommended Qualifications

  • 6-10 years of relevant experience in an Apps Development role or senior level experience in an Enterprise Architecture role with subject matter expert in one or more areas.
  • Exhibit expertise in all aspects of technology by understanding broader patterns and techniques as they apply to Citi’s internal and external cloud platforms (AWS, PCF, Akamai)
  • Lead resources and serve as a functional SME across the company through advanced knowledge of algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, networking, use of knowledge and experience to lead, architect, and drive broader adoption forward.
  • Acquire relevant technology and financial industry skills (AWS PWS) and understand all aspects of NGA technology – including innovative approaches and new opportunities.
  • Demonstrate knowledge on automating code quality, code performance, unit testing, and build processing in the CI/CD.

Education:

  • Bachelor’s/University degree, Master’s degree preferred

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Job Family Group:

Technology

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Job Family:

Digital Software Engineering

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Time Type:

Full time

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Primary Location:

Irving Texas United States

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Primary Location Full Time Salary Range:

$138,720.00 - $208,080.00


In addition to salary, Citi’s offerings may also include, for eligible employees, discretionary and formulaic incentive and retention awards. Citi offers competitive employee benefits, including: medical, dental & vision coverage; 401(k); life, accident, and disability insurance; and wellness programs. Citi also offers paid time off packages, including planned time off (vacation), unplanned time off (sick leave), and paid holidays. For additional information regarding Citi employee benefits, please visit citibenefits.com. Available offerings may vary by jurisdiction, job level, and date of hire.

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Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

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Other Relevant Skills

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

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Anticipated Posting Close Date:

Apr 29, 2026

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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.

 

If you are a person with a disability and need a reasonable accommodation to use our search tools and/or apply for a career opportunity review Accessibility at Citi.

View Citi’s EEO Policy Statement and the Know Your Rights poster.

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