Lead Data Developer - VP

About the Team

The Fixed Income Data team is a strategic and integral part of supporting Citi's GSP/Rates businesses, delivering exceptional capabilities in advanced business analysis, strategic project management, cutting-edge application development, robust quality assurance, and seamless integration with proprietary technology solutions. Our mission is to architect, build, and operate high-performance, resilient data platforms that empower critical financial operations and drive real-time decision-making across the firm.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a highly accomplished Java engineer to join our Realtime Risk Data team. This role is at the forefront of architecting, leading, and significantly enhancing our comprehensive real-time risk data acquisition, processing, and distribution framework. You will serve as a technical thought leader, driving the strategic adoption and implementation of cutting-edge streaming technologies such as Apache Kafka for high-throughput data ingestion, Apache Flink for complex event processing and real-time analytics, and Apache Pinot for ultra-low-latency OLAP queries on large datasets. You will also oversee the management of petabyte-scale datasets on S3, enabling efficient querying via Trino. This role demands deep technical expertise, a strategic mindset, and the ability to mentor and guide engineering teams in designing, developing, and optimizing mission-critical, high-performance real-time data solutions that directly impact global financial operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Architectural Leadership: Serve as the principal architect for scalable, high-performance Java-based real-time data solutions, ensuring robust design for high availability, fault tolerance, and resilience for both real-time and EOD risk processes.
• Strategic Implementation: Drive the strategic implementation and optimization of distributed stream processing frameworks (Apache Kafka, Apache Flink) and real-time data storage technologies (Apache Pinot) for ultra-low-latency analytics and complex event processing.
• Data Pipeline Mastery: Lead the end-to-end design, development, and operation of real-time streaming data pipelines, integrating with large-scale object storage solutions like S3 and analytics engines such as Trino.
• Technical Excellence & Mentorship: Champion continuous improvement in data reliability, efficiency, and scalability. Establish and enforce best practices for code quality, performance optimization, and system resilience through hands-on leadership and thorough peer code reviews. Mentor and technically guide senior and lead developers.
• SDLC Ownership: Drive significant contributions across all phases of the Agile software development lifecycle, from architectural vision and detailed design to implementation, deployment, monitoring, and ongoing support for critical real-time data systems.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate strategically with business analysts, product managers, quality assurance teams, and other engineering leads to ensure the delivery of seamlessly integrated, high-impact technology solutions that align with business objectives and architectural standards.
• Innovation & Research: Stay abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies in real-time data processing, distributed systems, and cloud-native architectures, evaluating and proposing their adoption where beneficial.

Required Skills and Qualifications

• Senior Data Engineering Expertise: 7+ years of progressive experience in data engineering and software development, with a significant focus on building high-performance, large-scale distributed systems.

• Java Mastery: Expert-level command of Java (version 11 or higher) with a deep understanding of concurrent programming, multithreading, advanced OOP concepts, design patterns, and performance tuning.

• Real-time Streaming Core: Proven, hands-on production experience and deep architectural understanding of:

• Apache Kafka or related technologies: For high-throughput, fault-tolerant message queuing and streaming.

• Apache Flink or related technologies: For advanced real-time stream processing, complex event processing (CEP), and stateful computations.

• Apache Pinot or related technologies: For ultra-low-latency OLAP queries on streaming data.

• Distributed Systems Architecture: Strong expertise in designing and implementing highly available, scalable, and resilient distributed systems.

• Data Storage & Querying: Extensive experience with large-scale data storage solutions (e.g., S3, HDFS) and distributed query engines (e.g., Trino/Presto, Spark SQL).

• SQL Proficiency: Advanced SQL knowledge with experience in optimizing complex queries for large datasets.

• Agile Leadership: Demonstrated experience leading technical initiatives and teams within an Agile software development environment.

• Communication & Problem Solving: Exceptional communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences and drive consensus on architectural decisions.

Preferred Skills and Qualifications

• Cloud-Native Data Ecosystems: Experience with cloud-native data services on platforms like AWS, Azure, or GCP, particularly related to streaming and real-time analytics.
• Container Orchestration: Hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Kubernetes and OpenShift for deploying and managing real-time data applications.
• API Development: Experience in designing and implementing high-performance RESTful APIs and event-driven microservices architectures.
• Performance Engineering: Deep understanding and experience with performance tuning, profiling, and optimization of real-time streaming applications and data stores.
• Financial Domain Knowledge: Strong understanding of financial derivatives, fixed income products, and risk management concepts from a technical data perspective.
• Technical Leadership & Mentoring: A proven track record of mentoring junior to senior engineers, fostering technical growth, and building high-performing engineering teams.
• Data Governance & Security: Experience with data governance, data quality, and security best practices in real-time data environments.
• Global Team Experience: Experience working effectively within a geographically distributed, global development team.

Qualification / Education

• Advanced Degree: Strong academic record, ideally with a Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical/quantitative discipline.
• Architectural Delivery: Demonstrable success in architecting, leading, and delivering complex, multi-tiered, high-performance real-time data applications and platforms.
• Domain Acumen: A deep understanding of financial derivatives (with fixed income products) and risk analytics, or a strong demonstrable capability and eagerness to rapidly acquire expertise in this domain from a technical perspective.
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Job Family Group:

Technology

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Job Family:

Applications Development

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Time Type:

Full time

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Primary Location:

New York New York United States

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Primary Location Full Time Salary Range:

$142,320.00 - $213,480.00

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:

Mar 09, 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.

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