SDLC & Release Automation Java/Kotlin Engineer

We’re looking for an enthusiastic & talented server side engineer to join our high-impact teams inside Citi’s CTO organisation. You’ll sit within Developer Enablement, a group focused on innovation, productivity and automation of our strategic developer tools used across the bank. We embody modern best delivery practices, experiment and ship fast, like a startup inside a global bank. Our mission is to drive productivity by streamlining/automating processes and make the best tools available for our 30k engineers. We are here to be opinionated and challenge processes and procedures making software delivery easier, more enjoyable and safer. At Citi’s scale saving tens of minutes per day equates to £10,000,000s of savings.

Opportunity: There are many exciting automation and simplification opportunities across the suite of strategic CTO owned tools related to developer release practices and SDLC alignment. Two closely related key strategic projects will require your expertise driving solutions:

• Release on Demand (RoD): This is our strategic release management platform that makes it trivial to generate production run books & ServiceNow Changes with the click of a button. Built internally approximately three years ago, the platform has quickly become our strategic release generation and deployment tool used across all lines of business. Last year it generated 60k releases and automated the deployment of approx. 65% of them. The tool is expanding at a rapid pace across the enterprise and is expected to double its release volumes for the third year running. RoD enables cultural change within development teams enabling them to move quickly while maintaining codified quality gates to ensure the correct SDLC and procedural requirements of the firm are upheld, whilst driving industry best practices (DORA).
• SDLC Automation: This is a greenfield initiative that builds on the success we’ve had in automating the SDLC and takes it further. This blue-sky project looks at ways we can greatly improve the SDLC process at Citi, taking ideas like grading engineering teams and rewarding those who follow best practices, perhaps moving them from manual approval processes to an automatic one. The use of Artificial Intelligence is planned to further automate and remove manual human led processes that add toil to the SDLC process.

Why you'll love working here: You get to work in the engineering focused part of the bank, the Chief Technology Office, building tools for other engineers. You’ll work and lead small, agile teams, in an organisation led by technologists and use the latest AI tooling to complete your work. You’ll impact the daily experience of tens of thousands of engineers at one of the largest engineering organisations in the world. Our culture runs on engineering craftsmanship. Leadership here actually understands what that means. We're proving what's possible inside a large organisation, and that means navigating some legacy alongside building the future. If you want everything perfect on day one, this isn't the right fit. If you want to help us get there, keep reading. The team is distributed across Belfast, Canada & London. You'll work closely with engineers across time zones and partner directly with product and platform leadership.

What you will do:

• Write code and deliver. You are a delivery focussed engineer for our back end services. That means contributing high-quality code regularly, not just reviewing other people's. You set the bar through your own work.
• Shape how we build. You'll have a real voice in our architecture and technical roadmap. Your opinion matters.
• Stay ahead of GenAI. This space moves fast. We need someone who follows it seriously, brings new ideas back to the team, and actively applies what they're learning to the products we build. If you've been experimenting with new models, new tooling, or new patterns, that's exactly the kind of thinking we want in the room.
• Be a team player. Thoughtful code reviews. Unblocking people when they're stuck. Sharing what you know. Your success here is tied to the team's success, not just your own output.
• Communicate like it matters. We're distributed across three continents. Clear, direct, proactive communication isn't a soft skill here. It's how the work gets done. You'll model it.

What We're Looking For:

A selection of the tools and capabilities required across our platforms. We value multi-disciplined polyglot engineers but also understand and support the need for specialisms too across the wider department.

• Proven experience delivering within technical projects.
• Deep, hands-on experience building and running production-grade services. You're still writing code regularly. You're good at it.
• Strong server-side engineering skills: Kotlin or Java (we’re using Java 21), building and consuming RESTful APIs.
• Proficiency with relational and/or NoSQL databases: Couchbase, PostgreSQL or MongoDB.

Highly Desirable skills:

• Experience with event-driven architecture.
• Experience with microservice architecture.
• Contract first APIs, such as swagger.
• Experience with message queuing systems: Apache Kafka.
• SRE/DevOps – Experience with scalability & Observability.
• Understanding of containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with CI/CD tools and automated deployments.
• Comfortable collaborating with product, design, and UI engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver robust backend solutions.
• AI experience is highly desirable but not mandatory.

Tools you’ll use (depending on role):

• Server: Kotlin, Java, Spring Boot, http4k, ktor, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Apache Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Tekton, Harness.
• Infra: OpenShift, Tekton, Harness.
• Mac or PC - It’s up to you. Access to time-saving AI tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cognition.ai’s Devin and Claude Code.

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.

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.