Leading Engineering Developer - Enterprise AI Products - Senior Vice President in London

About the Team

The Enterprise AI Products team is a small, high-impact global team within the Citi COO/CTO organisation, dedicated to building innovative solutions for the wider bank. We are at the forefront of Agentic AI, delivering capabilities that enable data sharing across agent ecosystems, supporting Agentic use cases, and shaping modern Agentic architecture through purpose-built tooling. Our work sits at the intersection of cutting-edge AI and real-world business impact.

The Role

We are looking for a seasoned Lead Engineering Developer to join our team. This person will perform a role of working with the business on how to use our tools, understanding real business problems in detail to drive changes to our platform and support the business in successful commercial deployments of the tools that we provide. They will have architect and development responsibilities across our AI enabled platform. This is a senior role within a deliberately flat team structure. You will be expected to take ownership, bring fresh thinking, and collaborate closely with colleagues across disciplines. Equally important is your ability to engage directly with business partners — understanding their problems, translating them into technical solutions, and delivering outcomes that genuinely make a difference. You will help set the strategy for the platform with our team lead and balance technical changes with supporting business deliverables. You will gain meaningful exposure to AI development and solutions, alongside a broad range of technical work in a fast-moving, delivery-focused environment.

Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership
  • Own, lead, and manage technical components end-to-end, ensuring alignment with business objectives and the wider product strategy.
  • Function lead team members in technical deliverables; although this role does not have line management initially, the role may evolve to have formal line management.
  • Understand where AI should be used, should not be used, and how to use it given business need. This will cover Agents, GenAI, and other AI capabilities.
  • Articulate and justify decisions and plans made with department and stakeholder MD/Ds.
  • Work with partners in Risk and other AI platform teams to help evolve Citi technology and procedures.
  • Partner with senior stakeholders to shape a compelling vision and technical roadmap for our products.
  • Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior team members, elevating the team's overall capability.
  • Ensure software quality through rigorous code reviews, technical design reviews, and a strong testing culture (unit and integration testing).
• Business Engagement
  • Engage directly with business partners to understand real business problems in detail — this role goes well beyond engineering.
  • Must be able to talk and partner with the business and other technology teams on their own. The role requires creating and agreeing roadmaps that technology can deliver to while also allowing the business to meet their commercial goals.
  • Work with stakeholders to capture objectives and outcomes and distil into requirements, identify pain points, and translate them into actionable user stories and a prioritised backlog.
  • Work with the business on timelines, ensure any agreements made can be delivered by the team and are balanced against current commitments.
  • Work with clients to deliver outcomes, gather feedback, and drive continuous improvement.
  • Work with internal clients (business and technology) to understand and help them using our tools.
  • Spot opportunities to deliver value and proactively bring them to the team.
• Engineering & Delivery
  • Design, develop, and implement robust solutions using object-oriented programming and sound technical design principles.
  • Write production-quality code in Python or Java — both languages are actively used in this role.
  • Working with ML flow.
  • Designing, developing, and testing agent build in Google ADK.
  • Working with Model Context Protocol (MCP) and creating servers.
  • Other technology we use includes Neo4j, Postgres, Kafka, and libraries such as FAST API.
  • Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to support reliable, repeatable deployments.
  • Collaborate with teammates on shared components and codebases.
  • Apply knowledge of networking, REST APIs, databases, and CLI tooling in day-to-day delivery.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues swiftly and effectively.
• Risk & Compliance
  • Take ownership of risk and security considerations, ensuring solutions meet Citi's policies — and setting an example by going above and beyond where it matters.
• Cross-Team Collaboration
  • Work alongside other teams to ensure technology integrates seamlessly with the broader platform and solution landscape. Our deliverables are platform capabilities that must integrate with other systems in teams beyond our own; building trust and organisational partnerships is key.

What We're Looking For

• Essential
  • Proven experience as a senior developer, technical lead, or similar role.
  • Strong background in object-oriented programming, technical design, and architecture.
  • Proficiency in at least one of: Java or Python — with hands-on experience in both Python and Java preferred. Postgres / Oracle experience.
  • Experience with Generative AI, some knowledge of AI Agents specifically ADK.
  • Practical experience with CI/CD tooling (e.g. Jenkins, uDeploy, Tekton, Harness, or equivalent).
  • Demonstrable experience driving technical strategy and roadmaps, with the ability to collaborate across teams and influence senior (MD-level) stakeholders.
  • Strong problem-solving skills, sharp attention to detail, and the ability to troubleshoot under pressure.
  • Solid foundational knowledge of networking concepts, REST APIs, databases, and CLI.
  • Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the confidence to engage at all levels.
  • Ability to adapt quickly in a dynamic environment where priorities evolve.
  • Line management and team leadership experience.
• Desirable Skills
  • Communication & Presentation: The ability to present ideas clearly and persuasively is key — there will be opportunities to present to senior leadership, and your ideas will only land if others can follow them.
  • Generative AI: Familiarity with GenAI concepts including system prompts, Agent Development Kit (ADK), and Model Context Protocol (MCP) for data and service sharing.
  • Google ADK: Hands-on experience using Google ADK.
  • Neo4j or other graph databases.
  • Team Leadership: Experience managing or coordinating software development teams.
  • UX / GUI Development: Any experience with front-end or user experience design and development.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Graduate-level or continuing education in a relevant discipline is a plus.

What we’ll provide you

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

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 energised to join us, motivated to stay, and empowered to thrive.

Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.