Kafka 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.

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. 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.

Key Responsibilities: •Kafka Administration: Deploy, configure, and maintain highly available Kafka clusters across on-premises and cloud environments, including Azure and GCP. 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.