Confluent Kafka Engineer

T+S USC

Need local
-onsite

Need Linked In

• Must have active or prior Public Trust Clearance.

Seeking a Confluent Kafka Engineer to work on-site in Woodlawn, Maryland. Will provide expertise in the development, testing, and production support of Confluent Kafka-based systems. This role requires deep expertise in Kafka architecture, including Confluent Control Center, Kafka Streams, and Kafka Connect. The engineer will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to ensure the smooth operation of data streaming services.

• Design Confluent Kafka cluster environments, configure and manage Kafka instances, and monitor system performance.
• Ensure data integrity and availability in a big data environment.
• Expertise in a programming language, such as Java or Python.
• Collaborate with product design teams and SMEs to understand data pipeline needs.
• Participate in all Agile ceremonies.
• Write and maintain high-quality code for Kafka producers, consumers, and stream processing applications.
• Develop and manage Kafka connectors for seamless integration with external systems, ensuring data consistency and reliability.
• Utilize Kafka Streams for real-time processing of streaming data, transforming and enriching data as it flows through the pipeline.
• Employ KSQLDB for stream processing tasks, including real-time analytics and transformations.
• Collaborate with data engineers, software developers, and Dev Ops teams to integrate Kafka solutions with existing systems.
• Ensure all Kafka-based solutions are scalable, secure, and optimized for performance.
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues related to Kafka performance, latency, and data integrity, including issues specific to Kafka Streams, KSQLDB, and Kafka Connect.

Minimum Education and Years of

Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field + 10+ years of experience in a technical field.
  • Technical Master's or Doctorate degree may substitute for 5 years of required experience.

Minimum

Skills:

• Software development experience with a solid understanding of building, deploying, and maintaining applications that leverage the Confluent Kafka platform, focusing on data streaming and messaging solutions.
• 5+ years of experience on an Agile development team
• Extensive experience with Apache Kafka and Confluent Kafka, including proficiency with Confluent Control Center, KSQLDB, Kafka Streams, and Kafka Connect.
• Proven experience in Kafka development, including producer and consumer API, stream processing, and connector development.
• Experience with Kafka cluster management, including setup, configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
• Familiarity with distributed systems, microservices architecture, and event-driven design patterns.
• Experience with AWS and containerization (Kubernetes) is a plus.
• Proficiency in programming languages, such as Java.
• Strong knowledge of Kafka internals, including brokers, zookeepers, topics, partitions, and offsets.
• Experience with monitoring tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana) and logging frameworks (e.g., Log4j).
• Proficiency in using Confluent Control Center for monitoring, managing, and optimizing Kafka clusters.
• Expertise in Kafka Streams for building scalable, fault-tolerant stream processing applications.
• Experience with KSQLDB for real-time processing and analytics on Kafka topics.
• Strong understanding of Kafka Connect for integrating Kafka with external data sources and sinks.
• Understanding of networking, security, and compliance aspects related to Kafka.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and automation tools (e.g., Jenkins, Git).

• Experience in an AWS environment.
• Experience with Hadoop or other big data platform.
• Excellent troubleshooting and analytical skills to quickly identify and resolve issues.
• Proficiency in Software development, preferably Java.
• Experience working on Agile projects and understanding Agile terminology.
• Participate in daily scrum and provide updates.