Lead Java Developer

ICE is seeking a Lead Java Developer within the clearing technology team. The ICE clearing technology team is responsible for building the applications that allows ICE's clearing houses to process millions of transactions a day, reliably and efficiently. ICE clearing houses finalize trades, settle accounts, and collect margin payments every day. This role is focused on hands-on leadership: owning FIX connectivity, building and operating resilient distributed services, and leading delivery for mission-critical post-trade management workflows.

The Lead Developer is expected to make an immediate impact in production, act as a technical lead for FIX API services (both protocol and functional aspects), and collaborate closely with business, technology, and infrastructure teams in a fast-moving environment. The ideal candidate for this position will be a self-directed individual with a passion for excellence and demonstrable experience in building and maintaining diverse business applications containing complex workflows and business rules. This role requires strong knowledge of server-side technologies, good experience with iterative development and SDLC tools, and the ability to work well with others.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical lead for FIX-based API for trade confirmation and post-trade management workflows. This is 100% hands on design and development role.
• Design, build, and maintain high-performance Java services supporting real-time trade processing
• Design and implement FIX clustering and HA strategies ensuring fault tolerance and operational resiliency
• Own production stability, performance tuning, and operational readiness of FIX services
• Collaborate with internal teams and external counterparties to deliver FIX integrations end-to-end
• Translate business and regulatory requirements into robust technical solutions
• Provide technical leadership through design ownership, code reviews, and mentoring
• Participate actively in the full SDLC, from requirements and design through release and support
• Continuously improve system performance, scalability, and reliability

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, MIS, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of professional software development experience in Java
• Demonstrated experience leading delivery of complex backend services in fast-paced, regulated environments
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills
• Ability to lead technically while remaining highly hands-on
• Strong expertise in Java, including concurrency, memory management, and performance tuning
• Hands-on development using Spring, JPA/Hibernate, and modern Java frameworks
• Experience building low-latency, distributed systems
• Solid database experience (SQL, PL/SQL, views, performance tuning)
• Experience with microservice and SOA architectures
• Familiarity with messaging and integration technologies including:

• JMS
• Kafka
• REST
• Web Sockets
• Redis

• Experience working in Agile development environments
• Strong understanding of operational considerations (monitoring, logging, failover, recovery)

Preferred Knowledge and Experience

• 2+ years of experience in financial markets technology (bank, hedge fund, or proprietary trading firm)
• Hands-on experience with QuickFIX/J, including configuration, session lifecycle, and clustering
• Experience deploying services to containerized Kubernetes platforms (OpenShift, Tanzu, etc.)
• Experience with resiliency patterns such as active-active deployments, load balancing, and failover
• Exposure to performance and load testing methodologies
• Experience collaborating with UI teams or modern UI technologies (React, Angular)