Lead Software Engineer

Job Summary

• We are seeking an experienced Development Lead to join our technology team and play a key role in designing, developing, and maintaining robust, scalable trading control systems that power Standard Chartered’ s digital banking platform. The successful candidate will lead technical initiatives, build platform 0-1, and contribute to architectural decisions that with major business impact to our global financial market business.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Design and develop high-performance, scalable backend services and APIs using modern technologies
• Implement microservices architecture patterns and distributed system design principles
• Ensure system reliability, performance, and security across all backend services
• Drive adoption of best practices in code quality, testing, and deployment
• Make architectural decisions and contribute to technical strategy and roadmap planning

Development & Implementation

• Build robust RESTful APIs and microservices using Java, Spring Boot, and related technologies
• Implement secure, efficient database designs and optimize query performance
• Develop event-driven architectures using messaging systems (Solace, Kafka)
• Integrate with third-party systems and external APIs following banking industry standards
• Implement comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting solutions

Collaboration & Communication

• Work closely with DEV, SRE, QA, BA, product managers, and business stakeholders
• Conduct thorough code reviews and provide constructive feedback
• Lead technical discussions and facilitate knowledge sharing sessions
• Participate in technical interviews and contribute to team building initiatives

Quality & Compliance

• Ensure all backend systems comply with banking regulations and security standards
• Implement comprehensive testing strategies including unit, integration, and performance testing
• Drive continuous improvement in development processes and methodologies
• Maintain high standards of documentation for systems and processes
• Support production systems and participate in on-call rotations when required

Skills and Experience

• Application Design, Architecture
• Software Development
• Leadership
• AI

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in development with strong Java expertise, with at least 5+ years in a leadership role.
• Proficiency in Spring Framework (Spring Boot)
• Extensive experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL) and NoSQL databases (Redis)
• Extensive experience with messaging systems (Solace, Apache Kafka)
• Strong understanding of microservices architecture and distributed systems
• Experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience in CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
• Experience with API design and development (REST, GraphQL)
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.
• Ability to mentor and lead a team of engineers, fostering an environment of innovation and continuous learning.
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.
• Languages: English

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.