Lead Kafka Engineer

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

Technical Skills: Expertise in Apache Kafka or Confluent Platform, including Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, Avro, and KSQL.Proficient in Cluster Management - Zookeeper, KRaft Strong object-oriented programming skills; Java, Go, Python Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Salt. Java backend development experience with Spring Boot. Solid understanding of software design patterns. Strong knowledge of architecture and design concepts, with the ability to create and maintain architecture artifacts. Proficient in containerization technology such as Docker, Kubernetes etc. Expertise in Dev Ops, CI/CD, and Git Hub Actions. Expertise in Domain Driven Design and Enterprise Application Integration. Experience with observability, telemetry, and APM tools such as dyna Trace. 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 Type Script-based frameworks. Expertise in Fin Ops. 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: 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 dyna Trace, Prometheus, and Grafana. Perform capacity planning and tuning to support high-throughput data pipelines. Collaboration: Partner with Dev Ops and application teams to provide guidance on event-driven architecture and producer/consumer performance best practices. NOTES:Top 3 skills for each req: Java (Object Oriented Programming), Kafka, Software Architecture, Vulnerability Management Soft Skills needed: Self Starter, Driven, Negotiation, Effective Communication Are there any automatic disqualifiers? - Someone who can’t drive things, understand what is being asked, unable to prioritize, support production issues, mitigate security risks Team dynamics & make-up (size, locations) - right now it is a 12-member team, with a mix of onsite, offshore team.