Kafka Administrator

Spatial Front, Inc; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Spatial Front, Inc. seeks a Kafka Administrator to sustain enterprise Kafka in a secure, on‑premises environment, focusing on PeopleSoft HCM integrations. The role requires strong Kafka administration, scripting, and a disciplined operational approach in a federal setting.

On-site in Arlington, VA with potential hybrid arrangements; U.S. Citizenship and an active Secret clearance (or ability to obtain) are required. Equal opportunity employer welcoming qualified applicants.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in CS/IS/Engineering or related field.
• 3+ years of systems, middleware, or platform administration experience, including at least 2 years with Apache Kafka or similar enterprise messaging systems.
• Experience administering on-prem Kafka on Linux with UNIX/Solaris familiarity, including monitoring, patching, and operational support.
• Kafka best practices: broker/topic management, replication/retention, performance tuning, logging, security, and automation.
• U.S. Citizen with active Secret clearance or ability to obtain one; DoD/federal environment experience preferred.

Responsibilities

• Administer, monitor, and sustain Apache Kafka infrastructure supporting PeopleSoft HCM and enterprise integrations in a secure, on-premises environment.
• Install, configure, patch, upgrade, maintain, and troubleshoot Kafka brokers, clusters, topics, partitions, and components across Linux and UNIX/Solaris.
• Manage topic provisioning, replication, retention, consumer groups, access controls, certificates, and secure connectivity per security requirements.
• Develop scripts, automations, runbooks, and SOPs to improve reliability and reduce manual effort.
• Monitor cluster health, throughput, latency, consumer lag, disk usage, JVM performance, logs, and alerts; investigate incidents and coordinate resolution.
• Support platform hardening, audit readiness, change control, and compliance in secured networks.
• Support high availability, backups, capacity planning, and failover across development, test, production.
• Collaborate with application, middleware, ETL, database, infrastructure, and cybersecurity teams for data movement and stable operations.

Skills

Kafka Administration

Linux

Unix/Solaris

Scripting

Security Compliance

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Spatial Front, Inc. (SFI)—a two-time USA Today Top Workplaces awardee and Washington Post Top Workplaces honoree is seeking a Kafka Administrator to join our growing team. The selected candidate will support the administration, sustainment, security, and continuous improvement of on‑premises messaging and data integration infrastructure in a secure federal environment, with a focus on PeopleSoft HCM systems.

This role centers on Apache Kafka administration across Linux and UNIX/Solaris environments. Responsibilities include ensuring platform reliability, maintaining secure operations, implementing monitoring solutions, automating processes, and optimizing system performance. The ideal candidate brings strong Kafka administration and troubleshooting expertise, proficiency in scripting, and a disciplined operational approach, along with experience supporting highly secure, compliance‑driven networks.

Work Location: On-site in Arlington, VA

Key Responsibilities

• Administer, monitor, and sustain Apache Kafka infrastructure supporting PeopleSoft HCM and related enterprise integrations in a secure, on‑premises environment.
• Install, configure, patch, upgrade, maintain, and troubleshoot Kafka brokers, clusters, topics, partitions, and supporting components across Linux and UNIX/Solaris‑based environments.
• Manage topic provisioning, replication, retention, consumer groups, access controls, certificates, and secure connectivity in accordance with enterprise security and operational requirements.
• Develop and maintain scripts, automations, runbooks, and SOPs to improve platform reliability, reduce manual effort, and support repeatable administration.
• Monitor cluster health, throughput, latency, consumer lag, disk utilization, JVM performance, logs, and alerts; investigate incidents and coordinate timely resolution.
• Support platform hardening, audit readiness, change control, and compliance with security requirements in highly secured or DISA‑aligned network environments.
• Support high availability, backup and recovery, capacity planning, failover readiness, and environment support across development, test, and production.
• Collaborate with application, middleware, ETL, database, infrastructure, and cybersecurity teams to support data movement, integration patterns, and stable operations.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• 3+ years of systems, middleware, or platform administration experience, including at least 2 years supporting Apache Kafka or similar enterprise messaging and streaming platforms.
• Hands‑on experience administering on‑premises Kafka environments on Linux, with familiarity supporting broader UNIX/Solaris infrastructure, including monitoring, patching, troubleshooting, and operational support.
• Experience with Kafka administration best practices such as broker and topic management, replication and retention strategy, performance tuning, logging and monitoring, security configuration, and scripting or automation.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen with an active Secret security clearance or the ability to obtain one; experience in secured federal or DoD environments preferred.

Desired Skills

• Familiarity with PeopleSoft HCM architecture, interfaces, batch processing, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Experience with Kafka security and operations concepts such as TLS/SSL, SASL, ACLs, certificate management, HA/DR, and consumer/producer troubleshooting.
• Knowledge of runbooks, SOPs, change management, backup and recovery, incident management, problem management, and capacity planning for enterprise platforms.
• Ability to collaborate across application, integration, data, security, and operations teams in a structured sustainment environment.

Additional Information

• Clearance: Must be a U.S. Citizen with an active Secret security clearance or the ability to obtain one.
• Work Environment: On-site/Hybrid as required by the contract and program.
• No agencies, third parties, or Corp-to-Corp submissions.
• Spatial Front Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer — all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status.