Lead Kafka Developer/Admin

Job Summary

We are seeking a Principal Kafka Engineer to lead the management, scaling, and optimization of our enterprise event-streaming ecosystem. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Apache/Confluent Kafka, applies object-oriented programming principles to advanced automation, and uses ITSM practices to support reliable, high-quality service delivery.

Required Qualifications

Experience: 3 5+ years of Kafka administration experience and 10+ years in software development or systems engineering.

Technical Skills:

o Expertise in Apache Kafka or Confluent Platform, including Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, Avro, and KSQL.

o Proficient in Cluster Management - Zookeeper, KRaft

o Strong object-oriented programming skills; Java, Go, Python

o Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Salt.

o Java backend development experience with Spring Boot.

o Solid understanding of software design patterns.

o Strong knowledge of architecture and design concepts, with the ability to create and maintain architecture artifacts.

o Proficient in containerization technology such as Docker, Kubernetes etc.

o Expertise in DevOps, CI/CD, and GitHub Actions.

o Expertise in Domain Driven Design and Enterprise Application Integration.

o Experience with observability, telemetry, and APM tools such as dynaTrace.

o Good understanding of networking, storage, virtualization, and other infrastructure architecture.

Self-starter with a goal-oriented mindset.

Excellent communication, negotiation, and problem-solving skills.

Expertise in supporting a Highly Available Low Latent Enterprise Application in Production environment(s).

Experience working with globally distributed team(s).

Frameworks: Solid understanding of ITSM/ITIL frameworks and Agile methodologies.

Desired Qualifications

Front-end development experience with Angular, React (preferred), or other TypeScript-based frameworks.

Expertise in FinOps.

Experience working in platform teams.

Preferred Certifications

Cloud provider certifications, such as Azure Certified Solutions Architect.

Confluent Certified Administrator for Apache Kafka (CCAAK).

TOGAF

Key Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Kafka Administration: Deploy, configure, and maintain highly available Kafka clusters across on-premises and cloud environments, including Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Manage topics, partitions, and replication to ensure platform reliability.

OOP-Based Development and Automation: Design and build reusable frameworks, automation tools, and APIs using Java to simplify cluster provisioning, monitoring, and self-service onboarding.

ITSM Integration: Manage the platform lifecycle through ITSM processes, including incident, problem, and change management, to reduce downtime and maintain SLA compliance.

Security and Compliance: Implement and maintain security controls and authentication mechanisms.

Performance Optimization: Monitor cluster health with tools such as dynaTrace, Prometheus, and Grafana. Perform capacity planning and tuning to support high-throughput data pipelines.

Collaboration: Partner with DevOps and application teams to provide guidance on event-driven architecture and producer/consumer performance best practices.