Lead Consultant | Java | Apache

About the role

Lead Consultant position focused on Confluent Kafka, available in a hybrid model in San Antonio, TX or Irvine, CA. This is a 6-month contract role targeting a start date of 01 Sep 2026. Visa-independent candidates only.

Interviews will be conducted virtually/video.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Kafka distribution vendors (e.g., Confluent) or cloud providers for support on Kafka-specific issues.
• Set up and fine-tune alerts for critical events (e.g., broker failure, data loss).
• Troubleshoot Kafka connectivity issues, consumer group problems, and data serialization errors.
• Use observability tools (DataDog, Prometheus, Conduktor, etc.) to monitor service health.
• Understand and work with different Kafka components (Replicator, Connector, Zookeeper, KSQL, etc.) and their use cases.
• Leverage DevSecOps (CI/CD) to perform administrative activities using Terraform.
• Collate all Kafka configurations, including users, ACLs, topics, connector configurations, and tiered applications.
• Perform platform maintenance activities:
  • Upgrades (Kafka, Conduktor, Spring Boot, etc.)
  • Patching
  • Certificate renewal activities
• Debug issues related to AVRO schema mismatches, consumer lag, user permissions, etc.
• Collaborate with product teams for new releases and documentation.
• Implement minor enhancements and automations for continuous improvements.
• Maintain disaster recovery (DR) runbooks and execute DR as per Risk and Security guidelines.
• Remediate vulnerabilities reported via the standard UVM process.
• Debug issues related to custom Kafka client applications written in Java, .NET, Python, and Spring Boot.
• Install and maintain Autosys and Autosys Agents.
• Maintain Autosys services (patching, upgrades, checkouts).

Requirements

• Minimum of 10+ years of experience.
• Client-facing role with team handling skills.
• Must-have skills: Confluent Kafka.