VP, Kafka Platform Manager

LPL Financial•Charlotte, TX

About The Position

LPL Financial is seeking a VP, Middleware Engineering manager to lead support and operations of Kafka and Swagger Hub platforms within its Technology organization. This role is crucial for managing mission-critical messaging, streaming, and integration platforms that power advisory platforms. The position involves leading Kafka Middleware Platform Engineering Operations for both on-premise and cloud-based environments, developing a high-performing team, managing financial planning, vendor relations, and contract negotiations. The role also includes developing strategy, roadmaps, and operational metrics for Kafka platforms, managing incident resolutions, platform upgrades, maintenance, and driving automation for Kafka and Swagger Hub platforms. A key aspect is assisting application teams with onboarding to messaging platforms and delivering internal automations and self-service capabilities for the developer community. The role requires installing, managing, and maintaining messaging platforms, consolidating platforms into the cloud, and maintaining operational hygiene. Contribution to integrating these platforms into a common management approach using DevSecOps and infrastructure-as-code principles is expected, along with establishing feedback loops for continuous improvement and prioritization of customer needs. The position will leverage common tools like Jira and ServiceNow for demand/work management and will lead, coach, and develop a team of engineers across various locations. Collaboration across the firm is essential to maintain alignment on vision, strategy, and performance goals, with an entrepreneurial mindset and critical thinking to enhance the value proposition of assigned products and programs.

Requirements

5-7 years of developing, cultivating, and leading strong, high-performing Kafka platform teams.
4+ years in platform engineering and management involving Middleware technologies.
5+ years delivering and operating in an Agile/Kanban model where dependency management and priority trade-off conversations are key to successful execution.
5-7 years of experience with Cloud technologies, architecture, DevSecOps and Infrastructure-as-code engineering and integration, including Terraform, Ansible, and platform management automation tools and technologies.
2+ years activating and managing high-performing 24x7 support teams.
Demonstrated Expertise (“DE”) managing middleware messaging platforms (Confluent Kafka) and in Public Clouds (AWS or Azure or GCP, or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure).
DE creating CI/CD deployment of DevOPS tools (Ansible, Chef and Jenkins) to automate provisioning and remove manual steps.
DE building integration for applications to Middleware tools, including Confluent Kafka ,IBM Message Brokers, and Message Gateways.
DE integrating different databases (Oracle, Postgres, and Microsoft SQL server) using middleware/integration technologies.
DE setting up enterprise grade monitoring solutions using one of Dynatrace ,Splunk, New Relic, and Nagios.
DE handling Linux based deployments and troubleshooting issues using Scripting tools (Shell Scripting, Python, Perl, and Ansible).
DE performing capacity assessment, maintaining operational hygiene, conducting High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) setups, requirements handling, delivering and code reviews, and production support for middleware/integration platforms (Confluent Kafka, IBM MQ, Axway, IBM Message Brokers, and Message Gateways).
DE managing Kubernetes/Docker based platforms.

Nice To Haves

8+ years of experience in technology leadership roles that span across architecture, platform, and infrastructure engineering preferably within a financial service or related FinTech firm.
Ability to create a strategy and execute on a roadmap that delivers to the strategy.
Strong communication skills, both written and oral, with ability to create/present presentations and serve as one of the recognized subject matter experts in the organization.
Demonstrate business acumen and the ability to interact with senior leaders, including developing, presenting, and gaining approval on business cases and funding requests.
Flexibility and organizational change management experience.
The ability to work in a cross-functional team and drive outcomes without having direct authority of all dependencies.
Actively anticipates, identifies, and manages risks within position scope and at the company.
Consensus-builder who drives change across initiatives within and outside direct accountability and evaluates solutions to the most complex business challenges.

Responsibilities

Manage mission critical Kafka messaging, streaming and integration platforms powering advisory platforms.
Lead Kafka Middleware Platform Engineering Operations for both on premise and cloud-based platforms.
Develop a high-performing platform team, handle financial planning, vendor management, contract negotiations.
Develop strategy, roadmaps, and operational metrics for Kafka platforms.
Manage incident resolutions, platform upgrades, maintenance and drive automation for Kafka and Swagger Hub platforms.
Help application teams onboard to messaging platforms.
Deliver internal automations and self-service capabilities for the developer community.
Install, manage, and maintain messaging platforms.
Consolidate platforms into cloud and maintain operational hygiene.
Contribute to integrating these platforms into a common management approach using DevSecOps and infrastructure-as-code pipelines and principles.
Establish feedback loops that ensure continuous improvement and prioritization of the highest value customer needs.
Leverage common tools, such as Jira and ServiceNow, for capturing, tracking, assigning, and planning demand/work.
Lead, coach, and develop a team of high-performing outcome-oriented engineers, including onshore, nearshore, and offshore personnel.
Collaborate across the firm to maintain alignment on vision, strategy, and performance to goals, approaching strategy with an entrepreneurial mindset, leveraging critical thinking to increase the value proposition of assigned products and programs.