Description

Key Responsibilities

 Kafka Platform Engineering Design, deploy, configure, and manage highly available Apache Kafka clusters. Implement and maintain Kafka ecosystem components including: Kafka Connect Schema Registry Kafka Streams MirrorMaker ksqlDB (preferred) Confluent Platform (if applicable) Manage Kafka topic configurations, partition strategies, retention policies, and replication settings. Optimize Kafka performance, throughput, and latency across production and non-production environments. Conduct capacity planning and forecasting for platform growth. Cloud & Infrastructure Management Deploy and manage Kafka platforms in cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, or GCP. Support Kafka deployments on Kubernetes/OpenShift platforms. Automate infrastructure provisioning using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates, etc.). Implement disaster recovery, backup, and multi-region replication strategies. Platform Reliability & Operations Establish monitoring, alerting, and observability using tools such as: Prometheus Grafana Datadog Splunk ELK Stack Troubleshoot production issues and perform root cause analysis. Define and track platform SLAs, SLOs, and operational metrics. Participate in on-call support and incident response activities. Security & Governance Implement Kafka security controls including: SSL/TLS SASL OAuth RBAC Encryption at rest and in transit Ensure compliance with enterprise security and governance requirements. Develop standards and best practices for Kafka platform usage. DevOps & Automation Build CI/CD pipelines for Kafka infrastructure and configuration deployment. Automate cluster provisioning, onboarding, upgrades, and maintenance activities. Implement GitOps practices where applicable. Develop scripts and automation tools using Python, Bash, or similar technologies. Stakeholder Engagement Partner with application and integration teams to onboard new workloads. Provide guidance on event-driven architecture best practices. Support development teams in Kafka producer and consumer implementations. Create documentation, operational runbooks, and knowledge articles. Required Qualifications Education Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field. Equivalent practical experience considered. Experience 5+ years of experience in platform engineering, middleware, or infrastructure support. 3+ years of hands-on experience administering Apache Kafka in production environments. Experience managing large-scale distributed systems. Technical Skills Apache Kafka administration and operations. Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, Kafka Streams. Linux system administration. Container technologies (Docker). Kubernetes/OpenShift. Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP). Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred). CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Azure DevOps. Scripting with Python, Shell, or PowerShell. Monitoring & Observability Prometheus Grafana Splunk Datadog ELK Stack Preferred Qualifications Confluent Certified Developer or Administrator certification. Experience with Event-Driven Architecture (EDA). Experience managing Confluent Cloud or Managed Kafka services. Knowledge of data integration technologies and microservices architecture. Experience with service mesh and API integration platforms. Exposure to financial services, retail, healthcare, or highly regulated industries. Soft Skills Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills. Excellent communication and stakeholder management. Ability to work in a fast-paced production environment. Strong documentation and process-oriented mindset. Collaborative team player with a continuous improvement mindset

Key Skills

Education

Bachelor's degree