Kafka Platform Engineer

American Express • Columbus, OH

292d • $133,500 - $241,900

About The Position

The Kafka Platform Engineer designs, implements, and supports scalable, secure Kafka-based messaging pipelines that power real-time communication between critical systems such as credit, loan applications, and fraud services. This role focuses on improving the resiliency, reliability, and operations of our Kafka platform in a highly regulated financial environment. The Kafka Platform Engineer partners closely with engineering and platform teams to support the migration from on-prem to AWS and ensure seamless integration across systems.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field of study.
• 10+ years of experience working across areas of the mainframe environment.
• 5+ years of experience designing and deploying complex mainframe IT solutions.
• Experience within a mainframe technical background using COBOL, CICS, VSAM, JCL, and related utilities.
• Experience as a Senior Systems Programmer using z/OS, CICS, DB2, network, RACF, storage management, WebSphere, disk storage, and LPAR management.
• Experience related to zMainframe disaster recovery and resiliency.
• Experience with the creation of detailed documentation for daily operational functions, event management, and recoverability.
• Experience with LPAR creation and management resulting in the elimination of single points of failure.
• Experience with budget and forecast management.

Nice To Haves

• 3+ years of experience with Apache Kafka in highly regulated, mission-critical environments (preferably finance or banking).
• Strong understanding of Kafka internals and distributed systems.
• Proficiency in Java, Scala, or Python for building Kafka producers, consumers, and stream processors.
• Experience with Kafka Connect, Schema Registry (Avro), and Kafka Streams.
• Hands-on experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with securing Kafka using Kerberos, SSL, ACLs, and integration with IAM systems.
• Solid understanding of financial transaction systems, messaging standards, and data privacy regulations (e.g., SOX, PCI-DSS, GDPR).

Responsibilities

• Understand the software development lifecycle to support implementation of technology solutions that create and enhance applications in the mainframe space.
• Inspect, analyze, and translate application functional and non-functional requirements into infrastructure technical design, application code, and configuration parameters.
• Provide technical on-call support as defined within the team and role expectations.
• Demonstrate proficiency in two or more programming languages (e.g. COBOL, Java) and develop or maintain at least three applications.
• Work with Mainframe application development engineers to review and troubleshoot code in conjunction with Infrastructure, DB2 Database code reviews and other Code level activities.
• Create and execute unit tests to ensure issues are proactively identified within the software development lifecycle.
• Assist in analyzing code to identify causes of errors and defects.
• Remediate known errors within development and production support contexts.
• Review application code with application and MSP teams.
• Estimate and size work based upon high-level requirements.
• Continuously improve infrastructure for applications and processes with a focus on quality, efficiency, and user experience.
• Cultivate relationships across roles and organizations to maximize collaboration, partnership, and efficiency.
• Provide peer coaching and feedback formally and informally.
• Manage and lead the relationship with our Managed Service Provider (MSP) who supports our Mainframe environments.
• Handle mainframe SME initiatives such as review and approval of IPL/upgrade schedules, observability of Mainframe environments, high availability configuration and practices.
• Mentor and coach MSP technology leads and other technical team members to assess needs, provide assistance, and resolve technical problems.
• Lead and direct MSP technical leads and Application Development teams to identify improvement opportunities in resiliency, reliability and observability in the Mainframe environments.

Benefits

• Medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, and other voluntary benefits.
• Six weeks of 100% paid parental leave for eligible parents.
• 401(k) plan with immediate enrollment.
• 11 paid holidays.
• Flexible Time Off (FTO) program.
• Paid Sick and Safe Time (PSST).
• Annual incentive bonus based on individual and company performance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Industry: Credit Intermediation and Related Activities
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree