Working at Citi is far more than just a job. A career with us means joining a team of approximately 219,000 dedicated people from around the globe. At Citi, you’ll have the opportunity to grow your career, give back to your community and make a real impact.
Citi’s Markets technology team is growing at lightning speed, and we’re looking for talented technologists to help build the future of global banking. Our teams are creating innovations used across the globe. As the world’s most global bank, Citi provides an opportunity to touch every corner of the globe and deal with incomparable trade volumes, scale and impact. We’re looking for new, innovative ways to push the boundaries of financial technology. Citi’s global technology team spans 84 countries, with almost 30,000 colleagues managing thousands of projects across the globe. Our team is young but rapidly growing. Join an environment with a laser focus on growth and progress and take your career to the next level through the power of Citi’s unmatched globality and vast expertise.
This isn't just another Java developer role. As a Lead Java Developer – Vice President within Citi's FX Risk technology team, you'll be at the intersection of high-stakes financial engineering and the next generation of AI-powered software development.
At Citi, we are actively redefining how technology drives global finance — every day, $5 trillion crosses our network. You'll architect and deliver the systems that power real-time FX risk management for one of the world's largest financial institutions, working in an environment where AI is not a future ambition — it's how we work today.
You'll have hands-on access to Citi's internal GenAI ecosystem: from GitHub Copilot and Devin.AI for agentic code generation, to Citi Squad for automated code reviews, to Stylus Workspaces — Citi's in-house GenAI platform powered by top-tier LLMs including Gemini, OpenAI, Claude, Llama, and local models. You'll use Prompt Engineering, Workflow Design, and GenAI Optimisation techniques as part of your everyday engineering practice.
This is the next generation of Lead Java Development — where your engineering instincts are amplified by AI, your decisions shape a strategically critical platform, and your impact is felt across global markets.
- Lead end-to-end delivery of complex, high-performance Java applications supporting FX risk management across global markets
- Architect scalable, low-latency solutions that process real-time risk data at scale — designing for resilience, performance, and security from day one
- Drive technical direction and key decisions — from system design and architectural choices to setting engineering standards across the team
- Translate complex business requirements into robust, high-quality code — working closely with quantitative analysts, traders, and business stakeholders
- Craft high-quality, scalable software in an agile environment, leveraging AI-powered coding tools to accelerate delivery without compromising standards
- Share expertise and raise the bar — act as a technical reference point for the team, influencing engineering quality through example, guidance, and knowledge sharing
- Champion innovation — actively evaluate, propose, and adopt new technologies and frameworks; this team has the mandate and appetite to bring in better tools
- Own quality — participate in mandatory cross-team code reviews and peer engineers, ensuring adherence to security, quality, and compliance standards
- Operate in production — take ownership of L3 production support issues, provide timely resolutions, and deliver long-term remediation fixes that address root causes — not just symptoms
- Support testing cycles and post-production deployment — from writing TDD-first code to validating releases in a weekly cadence
- Contribute to Citi's technology strategy, influencing how the firm approaches risk technology at a global scale
At Citi, almost all of our 240,000 staff have access to AI tools — and our engineering teams are at the forefront of that adoption. Our FX Risk team has been actively using Citi's internal AI ecosystem for over a year. These are live, battle-tested tools embedded into our daily engineering workflow — not pilots, not promises:
Coding & Code Generation
- GitHub Copilot — multi-model AI coding assistant (GPT, Claude, Gemini) integrated directly into your IDE for code completion, generation, and explanation
- Devin.AI — agentic code generation for complex, multi-step development tasks
- Prompt Engineering & GenAI Optimisation — techniques actively used to get the best out of every model in the stack
Code Review & Quality
- Citi Squad — Citi's internal automated code review platform, catching issues before they reach production
- AI-assisted cross-team peer reviews — mandatory, structured, and supported by tooling that flags security risks, missing tests, and policy violations
LLMs & Stylus Workspaces
- Large Language Models: Gemini, OpenAI, Claude, Llama, and Local Models
- Stylus Workspaces — Citi's in-house GenAI platform (powered by Gemini), connected to internal systems including Jira, GitHub, Slack, and Teams — enabling agentic AI workflows across the SDLC
Deployment & DevOps
- Enterprise DevOps Pipeline — CI/CD with JIRA, Zephyr, GitHub, Harness, Artifactory
- Container orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift
- Monitoring Tooling — production observability built in from day one
This is what it means to be a next-generation Lead Java Developer at Citi.
This role is centred around a greenfield application — built from scratch, now 3 years in production, and with a 10+ year strategic commitment from the business. You won't be wrestling with decades of legacy code. Instead, you'll be:
- Working on a modern, purposefully designed codebase that the team is proud of — with wide exposure to technologies across all aspects of the SDLC
- Contributing to a platform with long-term investment and roadmap certainty — this is not a project, it's a strategic product
- Empowered to introduce and champion new technologies — the team has a genuine mandate to evolve the stack, not just maintain it
- Delivering weekly releases in a structured Scrum environment with daily stand-ups, keeping the team aligned and shipping consistently
- Benefiting from structured learning paths, mentorship, and continuous development — your growth is backed by the team and the wider Citi engineering community
- Gaining exposure to cloud strategy — contributing to cloud adoption initiatives, deploying Citi APIs on AWS and Azure
- Working with event streaming and messaging systems including Kafka, Flink, and Solace at enterprise scale
This is a rare opportunity in financial services — a stable, well-funded platform with the freedom to keep building it better, backed by one of the world's most ambitious technology organisations.
Core Technical Skills
- 7+ years of hands-on Java development experience with strong focus on Core Java and multithreading in high-load, high-throughput systems
- Deep understanding of JVM performance optimisation — memory profiling, GC tuning, and squeezing performance where it counts
- Solid grasp of distributed systems architecture and in-memory computing concepts
- Proven production experience with Apache Ignite — you've used it at scale, not just evaluated it
- Strong MongoDB skills — CRUD operations, indexing strategies, and performance tuning in production environments
- Deep SQL knowledge and query optimisation in Oracle — you know how to make queries fast and keep them that way
- Solid experience with messaging technologies — Apache Kafka and/or Solace
- Proficiency in Linux environments and scripting — comfortable on the command line and automating where it matters
- Experience deploying and maintaining applications on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or similar)
- A genuine passion for Test-Driven Development (TDD) — you write tests first and mean it
- Readiness to engage in L3 production support and own release activities end-to-end
- English B1 or above — able to communicate clearly with technical and business stakeholders
Domain Knowledge (Highly Valued)
- Experience in financial services technology, particularly in risk, trading, or capital markets
- Familiarity with FX products — spot, forwards, options, or derivatives
- Understanding of real-time risk calculation systems or market data platforms
- Exposure to low-latency, high-throughput distributed systems
Leadership & Collaboration
- Proven ability to drive technical decisions and influence direction in an Agile/Scrum environment — without needing formal authority
- Strong communication skills — able to engage confidently with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- A passion for sharing knowledge and elevating engineering quality across the team
- Enthusiasm for cross-team collaboration — including active participation in cross-team code reviews
- A mindset of continuous improvement — always looking for smarter, faster, better ways to build, and the confidence to propose it
- Curiosity about how AI and GenAI tools can enhance engineering practice — eagerness to adopt and optimise AI-assisted workflows
Education:
- Bachelor’s degree/University degree or equivalent experience
- Global impact — your code runs in systems that manage risk across trillions in FX transactions daily
- Greenfield freedom — work on a modern, strategically committed platform with a 10+ year horizon
- AI-first engineering culture — live, production-ready AI tools including GitHub Copilot, Devin.AI, Citi Squad, and Stylus Workspaces, used by the team every day
- No legacy shackles — a genuine mandate to bring in and use new technologies
- Structured Agile delivery — Scrum, daily stand-ups, weekly releases — real rhythm, real output
- Continuous learning — structured learning paths, networking opportunities, mentorship, and development designed to sharpen your technical prowess and business acumen
- Career growth — a clear path to Senior VP and beyond, with global mobility across Citi's technology organisation
- Collaborative teams — work alongside world-class quants, traders, and engineers across global time zones
- Inclusive culture — Citi champions diversity and is committed to building teams where every voice matters
- Competitive compensation — salary, bonus, and benefits commensurate with VP-level seniority in London's financial sector
What we’ll provide you
This is a unique role that will put you in the position to be part of a new venture and actively drive change. Every day there will be new challenges that will help you develop new skills that can drive your career.
By joining Citi London, you will not only be part of a business casual workplace with a hybrid working model (up to 2 days working at home per week), but also receive a competitive base salary (which is annually reviewed), and enjoy a whole host of additional benefits such as:
- 27 days annual leave (plus bank holidays)
- A discretional annual performance related bonus
- Private Medical Care & Life Insurance
- Employee Assistance Program
- Pension Plan
- Paid Parental Leave
Special discounts for employees, family, and friends
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Visit our Global Benefits page to learn more.
Alongside these benefits Citi is committed to ensuring our workplace is where everyone feels comfortable coming to work as their whole self, every day. We want the best talent around the world to be energized to join us, motivated to stay and empowered to thrive.
#LI-RH4
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Technology
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Applications Development
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Full time
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Please see the requirements listed above.
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For complementary skills, please see above and/or contact the recruiter.
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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.
