Cloud Kafka Expert & Production Readiness Lead

IBM; Armonk (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is seeking a Cloud Subject Matter Expert to enhance client experience by leading analysis, troubleshooting, and design reviews for Kafka and Confluent Cloud platforms. The role emphasizes collaboration with cross-functional teams and delivering hands-on architecture guidance to production workloads.

Master’s degree required. In this position, you will influence data streaming architectures, production readiness, security, and governance while driving reusable patterns and

Qualifications

• Technical leadership as an authority for enterprise Kafka and Confluent Cloud platforms.
• Analysis and troubleshooting of complex issues across distributed systems and client IT environments.
• Design or review of event-driven architectures and guidance on production readiness, change management.
• Coordination with cross-functional teams to deliver effective solutions.
• Creation and reuse of knowledge assets and enablement content for client self-sufficiency.
• Use of client feedback to drive product quality and usability improvements.

Responsibilities

• Serving as the primary technical authority for Kafka and Confluent Cloud platforms and advising customers.
• Advising on data streaming architectures and Confluent functionality for ROI, resilience, and stability.
• Designing and reviewing event-driven architectures, including topic design and data contracts.
• Identifying and resolving operational issues before-impacting business continuity; advise on monitoring and runbooks.
• Guiding security, governance, risk, compliance for platform usage.
• Delivering architecture reviews, workshops, and coaching to promote customer self-sufficiency.
• Supporting incident response and contributing to reusable patterns and product improvements.

Skills

Technical leadership

Troubleshooting

Event-driven design

Cross-functional collaboration

Knowledge assets

Client feedback

Education

Master's Degree

Tools

Kafka

Confluent Cloud

Kafka Streams

Apache Flink

Schema Registry

Kafka Connect

Job description

IBM Software is seeking a Cloud Subject Matter Expert to enhance client experience by leading analysis, troubleshooting, and design reviews for Kafka and Confluent Cloud platforms. The role emphasizes collaboration with cross-functional teams and delivering hands-on architecture guidance to production workloads.

Master’s degree required. In this position, you will influence data streaming architectures, production readiness, security, and governance while driving reusable patterns and