Kafka Engineer

Nexiva • Cincinnati, OH

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Principal Kafka Engineer will lead the design, deployment, and administration of a high-availability, enterprise-scale Apache Kafka and Confluent Platform ecosystem. This is a hands-on role focused on architecting and scaling mission-critical streaming platforms, optimizing related technologies, building distributed microservices, managing infrastructure, and ensuring production performance, observability, low latency, and high availability. The position is onsite in Cincinnati, Ohio, five days per week, with relocation considered. The assignment duration is 12+ months.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software development or systems engineering.
• 5+ years of dedicated, hands-on Kafka/Confluent administration experience.
• Strong proficiency in Java and distributed microservices architecture.
• Deep experience with CI/CD, including GitHub Actions, and Infrastructure as Code.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, deployment, and administration of enterprise-scale Apache Kafka and Confluent Platform clusters.
• Architect and optimize Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, Avro, and KSQL/ksqlDB solutions.
• Develop distributed microservices using Java and Spring Boot.
• Manage ZooKeeper/KRaft transitions and infrastructure using Terraform, Ansible, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Drive production tuning, observability, low latency, and high availability.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed