Senior Platform Engineer (Kafka)

About the role

We are seeking a senior Kafka expert who combines deep Confluent Kafka architecture experience, strong cloud and on-premise platform engineering skills, and modern AI-enabled development expertise. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of automation, operational leadership, and enterprise stakeholder engagement. This role requires an on-site presence in Austin four days per week.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement secure Kafka architectures, including authentication, authorization, encryption, and network isolation.
• Define and support high availability, disaster recovery, and data replication strategies, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards.
• Advise on data ingestion, event streaming, and batch and stream processing architectures.
• Provide guidance on data modeling and serialization standards such as Avro, Protobuf, and JSON Schema.
• Design and build AI agents and custom frameworks to automate engineering and operational workflows at scale.
• Leverage AI-powered tools like Copilot to accelerate development, automate testing, and improve code quality.
• Drive automation-first operations using Python, Ansible, and scripting, and build self-service operational tools.
• Lead deep-dive investigations into complex production issues, perform root cause analysis, and drive remediation.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor to engineering, operations, and leadership teams.

Required Qualifications

• Experience: 10+ years of experience in distributed systems, messaging, and enterprise platform engineering.
• Technical Skills:
  • Extensive hands-on experience with the Confluent Kafka Platform, both on-premise and in the cloud.
  • Proven ability to leverage AI-assisted development (e.g., Copilot, code generation) and build AI-driven agents/workflows.
  • Strong background in Linux/Unix environments, networking, OS performance, and security.
  • Proven experience with automation, DevOps, and operational tooling (e.g., Azure, Jenkins, Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Python).
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with strong organizational and teamwork abilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Confluent Kafka and/or Cloud certifications.
• Prior experience supporting large-scale, regulated enterprise environments.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans (optional layer of financial protection).
• Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP).
• 401K program with company match after 12 months of tenure.
• Health Savings Account (HSA) on the HDHP plan.
• SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions.
• Corporate discount savings program and other discounts.
• On-demand training program, access to certification prep, and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars after 6+ months of tenure.
• Certification discounts and perks for associations including CompTIA and IIBA.
• Dedicated customer service team for consultants and a certified Career Coach.

Schedule

On-site presence in Austin four days per week.