Senior Platform Architect

Job Description

We are looking for a hands-on Senior Platform Architect to own the end-to-end technical architecture of the platform. You will define how the experience, orchestration, inventory, provisioning, intelligence, and integration layers fit together; set engineering standards for a Java/Spring Boot microservices estate; and lead the team's adoption of AI-assisted and agentic software development (GitHub Copilot, Devin, Claude Code, and similar) in a way that is productive, secure, and compliant within a regulated banking environment.

You are the senior technical authority on the team: you design, you code when it matters, and you bring others along.

• Own the target architecture across all platform layers: developer portal and APIs; workflow orchestration and policy engines; technology registry and metadata catalog; template registry, IaC engine, and environment lifecycle manager; AI recommendation and analytics; and integrations with DevOps, CI/CD, cloud, observability, and security systems.

• Design cloud-native, event-driven microservices on Java 17/21 and Spring Boot 3 / Spring Cloud, with Kafka for eventing and well-governed REST/gRPC APIs.

• Define the provisioning model: Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform and equivalents), reusable platform blueprints, and automated, auditable workflows across AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-prem/OpenShift.

• Architect governance-as-code: policy engines (e.g., OPA), security and compliance guardrails, and automated evidence for audit.

• Set non-functional standards for resiliency, scalability, observability, security, and data protection appropriate to a Tier-1 financial institution.

• Define how the team uses AI coding assistants and autonomous agents (GitHub Copilot, Devin, Claude Code, Cursor, or equivalents) across the SDLC — design, coding, test generation, code review, documentation, and modernization.

• Establish guardrails for AI-generated code: review standards, security and license scanning, secrets handling, data-classification rules for what may be shared with AI tools, and alignment with Citi's AI governance and model-risk policies.

• Architect the platform's own AI capabilities: technology and architecture recommendations, adoption insights, cost optimization, and agent-ready interfaces (e.g., exposing platform capabilities to AI agents via APIs or Model Context Protocol).

• Define and track measures of AI impact (cycle time, PR throughput, change failure rate, defect escape) rather than relying on anecdote.

• Lead architecture decisions through ADRs and represent the platform at architecture councils and design reviews.

• Partner with the Director, product owners, security, risk, and cloud platform teams to shape roadmap and sequencing (Inventory Foundation → Orchestration → Intelligence).

• Mentor senior developers, run design and code reviews, and raise the engineering bar across the team.

• Stay hands-on: build reference implementations, spikes, and the critical paths of the platform.

• 10+ years in software engineering, with 6+ years in an architect role on large-scale distributed systems.

• Deep, current expertise in Java (17+) and the Spring ecosystem: Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Security, Spring Data.

• Proven design of microservices and event-driven systems (Kafka or equivalent), API design, and API gateway patterns.

• Strong working knowledge of Kubernetes/OpenShift, containers, and at least one major public cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP); multi-cloud experience strongly preferred.

• Hands-on Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or similar) and CI/CD platforms (Jenkins, Harness, GitHub Actions, Tekton, or similar).

• Demonstrated, hands-on use of AI coding tools — e.g., GitHub Copilot, Devin, Claude Code, Cursor — in real delivery, plus a clear point of view on where they help, where they fail, and how to govern them.

• Understanding of LLM fundamentals relevant to engineering: context and prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, agentic workflows, hallucination risk, and evaluation.

• Experience with security-by-design, DevSecOps, and operating in a regulated environment.

• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to present architecture to senior executives and defend it in front of architecture councils.

• Experience building an Internal Developer Platform or developer portal (e.g., Backstage), service catalog, or CMDB-integrated technology inventory.

• Workflow orchestration engines (Temporal, Camunda, Argo Workflows) and policy-as-code (OPA/Gatekeeper, Kyverno).

• Experience rolling out AI coding assistants or agentic tooling across a team or organization, including measurement and governance.

• Familiarity with Model Context Protocol (MCP) or building tools/APIs consumed by AI agents.

• Financial services or other Tier-1 regulated enterprise background.

• Cloud or Kubernetes certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP Professional Architect, CKA/CKAD).

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience. Master's degree preferred.

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

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.

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

We use automated processing, including artificial intelligence, for our legitimate business interests (or our reasonable and appropriate business purposes) to identify and align the candidate's skills and abilities with a specific job opening. Additionally, if you so choose, or consent, we can match your skills and abilities to other suitable roles at Citi.

Importantly, all our hiring processes and decisions, including determining your suitability for a role, are conducted, checked, and decided by individuals. Our automated processing and AI do not involve relying on automatic or autonomous decision-making. Please refer to any Jurisdictional Considerations, with specific provisions for your country (where relevant) for further details.

Illinois residents – AI Notice and Right

------------------------------------------------------

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.

If you are a person with a disability and need a reasonable accommodation to use our search tools and/or apply for a career opportunity review Accessibility at Citi.
View Citi’s EEO Policy Statement and the Know Your Rights poster.