Senior - Database Administrator

Darwinbox Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,100,000; Full time

Job summary

Darwinbox Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in Hyderabad, India, seeks a Data Platform Engineer - Streaming Platforms to administer enterprise Apache Kafka environments.

You will install, configure, monitor, and upgrade Kafka clusters for real‑time streaming workloads, coordinating with application, data engineering, and security teams to ensure reliability and security. The role emphasizes production support, troubleshooting, and platform monitoring with a focus on scalability and secure access

Qualifications

• 4-8 years of IT experience with hands-on Apache Kafka administration.
• Experience with installation, configuration, maintenance, upgrades of Kafka clusters.
• Strong knowledge of topics, partitions, replication, producers, consumers, offsets, and consumer groups.
• Experience with SSL/TLS, SASL, and ACL-based security.

Responsibilities

• Install, configure, administer, maintain, and upgrade Apache Kafka clusters across enterprise environments.
• Monitor Kafka platform health, availability, capacity, and performance; troubleshoot issues and tune performance.
• Create and manage Kafka topics, partitions, retention, and other resources.
• Manage producers, consumers, offsets, and consumer groups for reliable messaging.
• Implement and maintain Kafka security using SSL/TLS, SASL, and ACLs.
• Support production Kafka environments, assist with incident troubleshooting and root-cause analysis.
• Analyze logs to identify production issues and perform platform health checks.
• Perform routine maintenance, patching, upgrades, and capacity planning.
• Support high availability, replication, backup/recovery, and disaster-recovery requirements.
• Use Linux/Unix and shell scripting to automate tasks.
• Maintain runbooks, standards, and platform inventories.

Skills

Kafka administration

Cluster tuning

Security and ACLs

Linux/Unix scripting

Incident troubleshooting

Production support

Tools

Confluent Kafka

Kafka Connect

Schema Registry

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Position Summary:

The Data Platform Engineer - Streaming Platforms is responsible for the administration, reliability, security, and operational support of enterprise Apache Kafka environments. This role is intended for an experienced Kafka Administrator with 4-8 years of overall IT experience and hands‑on experience administering Apache Kafka platforms. The engineer will install, configure, administer, monitor, troubleshoot, tune, and upgrade Kafka clusters that support business‑critical real‑time streaming workloads. The role works closely with application, data engineering, infrastructure, security, and production support teams to maintain stable, secure, and highly available streaming services.

Responsibilities:

• Install, configure, administer, maintain, and upgrade Apache Kafka clusters across enterprise environments.
• Monitor Kafka platform health, availability, capacity, and performance; troubleshoot platform issues and implement performance‑tuning recommendations.
• Create, configure, and manage Kafka topics, partitions, replication factors, retention settings, and other cluster resources.
• Manage and troubleshoot producers, consumers, offsets, and consumer groups to support reliable message processing.
• Implement and maintain Kafka security using SSL/TLS, SASL, and Access Control Lists (ACLs).
• Support production Kafka environments, participate in incident troubleshooting, perform root‑cause analysis, and assist with service restoration.
• Analyze Kafka, broker, operating‑system, and application logs to identify and resolve production issues.
• Perform routine platform maintenance, patching, upgrades, capacity planning, and operational health checks.
• Support high availability, replication, resiliency, backup/recovery, and disaster‑recovery requirements for streaming platforms.
• Use Linux/Unix administration and Shell scripting to support platform operations and automate repetitive administrative tasks.
• Maintain operational documentation, runbooks, configuration standards, troubleshooting procedures, and platform inventories.
• Collaborate with application and engineering teams to onboard new Kafka use cases and resolve platform integration issues.
• Support Kafka environments using Zookeeper and/or Kraft architecture and participate in platform modernization activities.

Education & Experience:

• 4-8 years of overall Information Technology experience.
• Hands‑on experience with Apache Kafka administration in production or enterprise environments.
• Experience with Kafka cluster installation, configuration, administration, maintenance, and upgrades.
• Strong knowledge of Kafka topics, partitions, replication, brokers, producers, consumers, offsets, and consumer groups.
• Experience monitoring, troubleshooting, and performance tuning Kafka clusters and streaming workloads.
• Hands‑on knowledge of Kafka security, including SSL/TLS, SASL authentication, and ACL based authorization.
• Working knowledge of Linux/Unix environments and Shell scripting.
• Experience supporting production systems and troubleshooting incidents in business critical environments.
• Knowledge of Apache Zookeeper and Kafka KRaft architecture.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills and the ability to collaborate across technical teams.

Must Have Skills

• Kafka cluster installation, configuration, administration, and upgrades
• Monitoring, troubleshooting, and performance tuning
• Topics, partitions, replication, and consumer group management
• Kafka security - SSL/TLS, SASL, and ACLs
• Linux/Unix and Shell scripting
• Production support and incident troubleshooting

Nice to Have Skills

• Hands‑on experience with Confluent Kafka or Confluent Platform.
• Experience with Kafka Connect and connector administration.
• Experience administering or supporting Schema Registry.
• Experience with Prometheus and Grafana for Kafka monitoring, metrics, dashboards, and alerting.
• Experience with automation, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, or scripting used to operate streaming platforms.

Licenses, Certifications & Training:

• N/A

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Behaviors:

• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem‑solving skills with the ability to quickly diagnose, resolve, and prevent complex Kafka platform and streaming‑related issues.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills with the ability to effectively partner with application, infrastructure, security, and engineering teams in a fast‑paced environment.
• Strong understanding of platform reliability, availability, security, and operational best practices, with a focus on maintaining stable and highly available enterprise systems.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, work independently, and make sound technical decisions while supporting critical production environments and service‑level objectives.
• Demonstrates accountability, attention to detail, continuous learning, and a customer‑focused mindset while promoting operational excellence, knowledge sharing, and process improvement.