Lead Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Developer - Kafka

Wells Fargo & Company•Irving, TX

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Wells Fargo is seeking a seasoned Lead Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Developer to join our Engineering team and help build the automation foundations that provision, manage, and scale our Confluent Kafka platform. This role is ideal for a hands‑on engineer who understands the operational complexity of distributed streaming systems and is passionate about enabling frictionless self‑service through automation. You will lead by example—designing and implementing scalable IaC modules and GitOps workflows that abstract the complexity of provisioning Confluent Kafka clusters, configuring brokers, managing partitions and replication, enforcing ACLs and security policies, deploying platform components such as Schema Registry and Connect workers, and enabling enterprise‑grade observability. This role blends strategic platform architecture, automation engineering, and high‑quality code delivery.

Requirements

5+ 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
5+ years of full‑stack software development experience using Java.
3+ years of experience deploying and operating Confluent Kafka (cloud, hybrid, or on‑prem)
3+ years of experience with data modeling, event schema design, and SQL‑based data processing
3+ years of experience with IaC tools such as Terraform and Ansible
3+ years of experience implementing GitOps or similar automation practices
2+ years of experience with Kubernetes/OCP, containerization, and hybrid cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
2+ years of experience designing and consuming RESTful APIs and integrating automation into platform services

Nice To Haves

Experience working with multi‑region replication, Cluster Linking, and advanced Confluent HA/DR architectures
Deep understanding of Confluent Kafka internals including brokers, partitions, ISR, replication, KRaft/ZooKeeper roles, and controller behavior
Experience implementing Confluent platform modules such as Schema Registry, Kafka Connect connectors, and ksqlDB
Familiarity with designing event-driven architectures and streaming pipelines built on Kafka
Experience with high availability and DR patterns across multi‑AZ and multi‑region Kafka deployments
Hands‑on experience with observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK) and Confluent monitoring APIs/metrics

Responsibilities

Lead large-scale initiatives to automate provisioning, configuration, and lifecycle operations for Confluent Kafka clusters and streaming platform components
Architect and develop reusable IaC components (Terraform, Ansible) for Kafka broker deployment, scaling, topic provisioning, partition/replication configuration, RBAC/ACL policies, and failover strategies
Develop robust APIs using Java Spring Boot to expose Kafka provisioning, configuration, quota management, and governance workflows
Design and implement GitOps-driven workflows to automate Kafka cluster and topic changes—including partition scaling, retention policies, cluster configurations, and Confluent add‑ons (Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, ksqlDB)
Build and maintain self-service platform capabilities enabling developers to request Kafka topics, schemas, service accounts, ACLs, and other resources through intuitive APIs or service catalogs
Define and enforce Kafka platform standards, including naming conventions, topic retention requirements, HA/DR patterns, multi‑AZ/multi‑region guidelines, and enterprise security controls
Collaborate across engineering, security, and product teams to align Kafka automation efforts with strategic organizational goals
Participate in architecture and code reviews while mentoring engineers on Kafka platform operations, IaC patterns, and automation best practices
Continuously improve platform reliability, performance, scalability, and operational efficiency through automation and infrastructure modernization