Lead Software Engineer

Job Title: Lead Confluent/Kafka Engineer

Location: Remote

Job Type: Contract

Job Responsibilities and Duties:

• Architect and design scalable, fault-tolerant, and high-performance Kafka-based data streaming solutions. Lead technical design sessions and provide architectural guidance to junior engineers.
• Develop and maintain Confluent Platform components, including Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, Flink, TableFlow and ksqlDB. Implement and manage monitoring and alerting systems for the Kafka cluster.
• Lead troubleshooting and resolution of complex issues within the data streaming platform. Perform root cause analysis and implement corrective actions to prevent future occurrences. Mentor and guide junior engineers.
• Collaborate with other engineering teams to integrate data streams into their applications. Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for the data streaming platform. Provide technical leadership and guidance on best practices.
• Participate in code reviews and ensure adherence to coding standards and best practices.
• Proactively identify and address potential performance bottlenecks and scalability issues.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives.
• Stay up to date on the latest Confluent Platform and Kafka technologies.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. Master's degree preferred.
• 5+ years of experience with Confluent Platform and Kafka, including experience in designing and implementing large-scale data streaming solutions.
• Experience as a developer/operator of the Kafka technology (NOT interested in candidates who set up clusters for others to use).
• Must have real-world experience setting up after Kafka real-time data streaming.
• Proficient in Java or other JVM languages (e.g., Scala, Kotlin). Experience with Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, and ksqlDB. Strong understanding of Kafka architecture and concepts (topics, partitions, consumers, producers). Experience with message queuing systems. Familiarity with cloud-based environments (AWS, Azure, GCP). Excellent problem-solving and debugging skills. Experience with CI/CD.
• Experience leading and mentoring engineering teams. Strong architectural skills. Experience with performance tuning and optimization. Experience with schema registries (e.g., Avro).
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team. Excellent communication and collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Confluent Certified Engineer
• Experience with other streaming technologies (e.g., Spark Streaming, Flink).
• Experience with containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience with data visualization and analytics tools.