Kafka Platform Engineer

Responsibilities

• Assist in building, deploying, and maintaining Confluent Kafka platforms on Open Shift (OCP) under guidance from senior engineers
• Support the deployment and operation of Kafka components including brokers, KRaft controllers, Schema Registry, and Kafka Connect
• Participate in platform upgrade and improvement activities, including patching, configuration updates, and performance tuning
• Work with senior engineers to evaluate and integrate Kafka ecosystem tools and OCP-native capabilities
• Contribute to automation efforts, including CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure-as-Code templates for Kafka deployments
• Assist in implementing high availability and resiliency patterns, including replication, failover configurations, and cluster linking
• Follow established platform governance and standards, including naming conventions, topic management, and security best practices
• Participate in incident response and troubleshooting, helping identify root causes and document resolutions
• Learn and apply best practices for Kafka architecture and OCP deployment models, including networking, storage, and resource allocation
• Support operational processes and controls, ensuring alignment with enterprise policies and procedures
• Assist in monitoring and improving platform performance, capacity, and resource utilization
• Collaborate with application teams to support Kafka onboarding and basic integration use cases
• Work closely with internal teams (OCP, networking, security) and vendors to resolve issues and improve platform stability

• 2+ years of Technology Infrastructure Engineering and Solutions experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education
• Good understanding of Apache Kafka concepts, including topics, partitions, producers, and consumers
• Exposure to container platforms such as Kubernetes or Open Shift (OCP)
• Familiarity with Linux systems, networking basics, and distributed system fundamentals
• Basic knowledge of automation or scripting, such as Shell, Python, or similar tools
• Understanding of CI/CD concepts and Dev Ops practices
• Awareness of security fundamentals, including authentication, authorization, and encryption basics
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to troubleshoot issues with guidance
• Good communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work in a team environment