Senior Data Platform Engineer - Vice President

Overview

Lead hands-on technical design and development of Citi's next-generation Fixed Income data platform, focused on streaming, data pipeline architecture and scalable microservices, while coaching junior and mid-level data engineers.

What you'll do

• Provide technical leadership through direct code contribution, architecture review and hands-on guidance to junior and mid-level data engineers across polyglot environments.
• Drive and implement the technical design and hands-on development of highly scalable, low-latency, fault-tolerant data pipelines, real-time streaming platforms (e.g., Flink) and microservices architectures.
• Actively participate in the strategic planning, setup, enhancement, migration and operational excellence of critical platform infrastructure, including distributed streaming (Flink) and high-performance caching (Redis).
• Continuously research, evaluate and prototype emerging open-source data and streaming technologies, leading their integration into Citi's data platform through direct implementation, including new streaming frameworks and caching solutions.
• Proactively identify and implement architectural and systemic performance optimizations for efficiency, responsiveness and resilience across the data platform, including Flink and Redis clusters.
• Collaborate closely with senior technical stakeholders across engineering, data science and business teams to translate complex technical requirements into robust, high-impact implementations.
• Drive timely, high-quality and secure delivery of data platform features, championing agile methodologies, engineering best practices and accountability for code quality and robust testing.
• Act as a primary escalation point for complex technical challenges, providing expert diagnosis and hands-on resolution.

What you'll need

• 10+ years of demonstrable and highly hands-on experience in software development, with at least 3-5 years in a lead technical contributor or staff engineer role within a data-intensive environment.
• Proven expertise in designing, building and implementing Microservices and complex streaming/data pipeline architectures.
• Demonstrated ability to be a technical authority and actively contribute across multiple programming languages/frameworks, with strong hands-on experience in Java and significant expertise in Python, along with practical knowledge of front-end technologies such as Angular/React.
• In-depth architectural understanding and hands-on experience with Apache Flink for real-time stream processing, including Flink SQL, DataStream API and state management.
• Comprehensive knowledge of Flink infrastructure setup, maintenance, enhancement and migration strategies, and experience evaluating/integrating alternative streaming frameworks.
• In-depth knowledge and practical experience with Redis, including data structures, caching patterns and pub/sub mechanisms, and strategic expertise in Redis cluster setup, maintenance, enhancement and migration for mission-critical, high-performance applications.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems concepts and extensive hands-on experience with data distribution platforms such as Apache Kafka, and big data storage/querying systems (e.g., Trino, Pinot, Druid, Ignite) for low-latency access in large-scale distributed data pipelines.
• Proven experience with the design, implementation and operational aspects of cloud-native applications and deployment via Kubernetes / OpenShift / ECS, specifically for managing microservices, streaming and data services.
• Exceptional ability to provide technical direction, coach junior engineers through hands-on collaboration, and articulate complex technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, a data-driven approach to technical decision-making, and the ability to define and execute long-term technical strategies through direct implementation.
• Demonstrable experience driving and implementing CI/CD strategies for rapid, reliable and secure deployment of microservices and streaming components, with familiarity with TeamCity, SonarQube and Jenkins.
• Expertise in the SDLC lifecycle within an Agile environment, and a champion of engineering best practices including architectural patterns, coding standards, rigorous code review and robust unit/integration testing.
• Bachelor's degree/University degree or equivalent experience.

Nice to have

• Experience with Large Language Models (LLMs), including fine-tuning, prompt engineering and integrating LLMs into applications.
• Strong experience with standard CI tools (Jenkins, TeamCity, SonarQube, Git).

Details

• Location: Pune, Maharashtra, India.
• Full-time.
• May occasionally work a non-standard shift including nights and/or weekends and/or have on-call responsibilities to support critical platform operations.