Lead Java Developer

Job Purpose

ICE is seeking a Lead Java Developer within the clearing technology team. The ICE clearing technology team is responsible for building the applications that allows ICE’s clearing houses to process millions of transactions a day, reliably and efficiently. ICE clearing houses finalize trades, settle accounts, and collect margin payments every day. This role is focused on hands‑on leadership: owning FIX connectivity, building and operating resilient distributed services, and leading delivery for mission‑critical post‑trade management workflows.

The Lead Developer is expected to make an immediate impact in production, act as a technical lead for FIX API services (both protocol and functional aspects), and collaborate closely with business, technology, and infrastructure teams in a fast‑moving environment. The ideal candidate for this position will be a self-directed individual with a passion for excellence and demonstrable experience in building and maintaining diverse business applications containing complex workflows and business rules. This role requires strong knowledge of server-side technologies, good experience with iterative development and SDLC tools, and the ability to work well with others.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical lead for FIX‑based API for trade confirmation and post‑trade management workflows. This is 100% hands on design and development role.
• Design, build, and maintain high‑performance Java services supporting real‑time trade processing
• Design and implement FIX clustering and HA strategies ensuring fault tolerance and operational resiliency
• Own production stability, performance tuning, and operational readiness of FIX services
• Collaborate with internal teams and external counterparties to deliver FIX integrations end‑to‑end
• Translate business and regulatory requirements into robust technical solutions
• Provide technical leadership through design ownership, code reviews, and mentoring
• Participate actively in the full SDLC, from requirements and design through release and support
• Continuously improve system performance, scalability, and reliability

Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, MIS, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of professional software development experience in Java
• Demonstrated experience leading delivery of complex backend services in fast‑paced, regulated environments
• Strong analytical, problem‑solving, and communication skills
• Ability to lead technically while remaining highly hands‑on
• Strong expertise in Java, including concurrency, memory management, and performance tuning
• Hands‑on development using Spring, JPA/Hibernate, and modern Java frameworks
• Experience building low‑latency, distributed systems
• Solid database experience (SQL, PL/SQL, views, performance tuning)
• Experience with microservice and SOA architectures
• Familiarity with messaging and integration technologies including:
• • JMS
  • Kafka
  • REST
  • Web Sockets
  • Redis
• Experience working in Agile development environments
• Strong understanding of operational considerations (monitoring, logging, failover, recovery)

Preferred Knowledge and Experience 

• 2+ years of experience in financial markets technology (bank, hedge fund, or proprietary trading firm)
• Hands‑on experience with QuickFIX/J, including configuration, session lifecycle, and clustering
• Experience deploying services to containerized Kubernetes platforms (OpenShift, Tanzu, etc.)
• Experience with resiliency patterns such as active‑active deployments, load balancing, and failover
• Exposure to performance and load testing methodologies
• Experience collaborating with UI teams or modern UI technologies (React, Angular)

Why This Role

• Opportunity to lead technically while remaining deeply hands‑on
• Work on mission‑critical infrastructure operating at significant scale
• High‑impact role with production responsibility and visibility