Sr. Open Source Software Engineer (Kafka)

NetApp, Inc.

4d•$220,000 - $265,000•Remote

About The Position

NetApp Instaclustr is hiring a Senior Open Source Software Engineer to lead Apache Kafka upstream engineering and connect community-level work to production outcomes for enterprise customers. The role includes upstream technical influence, customer and operator impact, substantial autonomy, collaboration with peers, and engagement with product and field teams. The position is US remote and is part of a globally distributed Open Source Engineering team.

Requirements

At least 12 years of applicable professional software engineering experience.
Current Apache Kafka committer status and a sustained, publicly verifiable upstream track record across patches, reviews, KIPs, and community standing in Kafka core or a closely related area.
Expert Java engineering capability in performance-sensitive, concurrent, production-grade distributed systems, including the ability to write, review, and reason deeply about complex Kafka internals.
Deep mastery of at least one major Apache Kafka domain, such as broker storage and log replication, KRaft and metadata management, consumer group coordination and rebalancing, protocol and client compatibility, Kafka Streams, Kafka Connect, observability, performance, release management, or CI.
Demonstrated ability to lead technical work through Apache open source governance, including KIP authoring or co-sponsorship, design consensus, mailing-list engagement, and Jira-driven delivery from proposal through merge.
Strong written communication for asynchronous, global, public technical collaboration, including mailing lists, design documents, code reviews, and Jira threads.
Senior-level technical judgment to resolve most blockers independently, determine approaches for novel or ambiguous assignments, proactively surface systemic risks, and produce work consistent with project and team objectives.
Bachelor's degree in engineering or a technically related field, or additional equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

PMC membership in Apache Kafka or a related Apache project.
Track record in current Kafka feature and maintenance areas, such as KRaft maturity, controller and metadata reliability, consumer rebalance protocol improvements, exactly-once semantics, tiered storage, Kafka Connect security and operability, Streams APIs, client metrics, or release stabilization.
Experience connecting upstream technical leadership to enterprise customer and operator outcomes by translating production pain points into accepted community improvements.
History of mentoring contributors toward reviewer or committer standing in an open governance project.
Familiarity with the Kafka ecosystem, including Kafka Streams, Kafka Connect, MirrorMaker 2, Kafka clients, schema and serialization patterns, Kubernetes-based Kafka operations, or adjacent open source projects such as Strimzi.

Responsibilities

Lead Apache Kafka upstream initiatives from KIP authoring and design consensus through implementation, review, and release across relevant Kafka domains.
Provide binding committer reviews of upstream patches and community contributions.
Participate in Apache Kafka release management, including planning, blocker triage, test stabilization, release-candidate validation, documentation readiness, and post-release follow-through.
Translate enterprise customer and operator needs into upstream proposals and KIP-level designs, and advise product and field teams on complex Kafka trade-offs.
Participate in relevant Kafka community channels and influence decisions on architecture, compatibility, protocol evolution, release policy, contribution standards, and the long-term roadmap.
Mentor engineers toward committer standing and improve contribution quality through rigorous reviews, test discipline, and engineering guidance.
Improve upstream infrastructure, including CI reliability, test coverage, contributor tooling, benchmarking, release automation, and compatibility validation.