Kafka Engineer

Bright Vision Technologies; Cranberry Township (Butler County); Remote; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Bright Vision Technologies is seeking an experienced Kafka Engineer to architect, deploy, and operate large-scale Apache Kafka and Confluent environments in a remote US setting. You will own the platform end-to-end, including sizing, configuration, security, automation, observability, and developer enablement, partnering with product and engineering teams.

The ideal candidate has deep Kafka internals knowledge, strong DevOps/SRE practices, and a track record of delivering reliable streaming

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Five or more years of experience operating Apache Kafka or Confluent Platform in production.
• Deep, hands-on knowledge of Kafka internals (partitions, replication, ISRs, consumer groups).
• Strong experience with Kafka security (SASL, mTLS, ACLs, RBAC).
• Hands-on experience with Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, and either Kafka Streams or ksqlDB.
• Experience with HA/DR strategies for Kafka.
• Strong scripting skills in Python, Bash, or Go.
• Hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible).
• Working knowledge of observability tooling for Kafka.
• Excellent troubleshooting, communication, and documentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Architect, deploy, and operate large-scale Apache Kafka or Confluent Platform clusters across on-prem and cloud environments.
• Design partitioning, replication, and topic strategies that balance throughput, durability, and operational simplicity.
• Implement strong security on Kafka clusters using SASL, mTLS, ACLs, RBAC, and integration with corporate IdPs.
• Operate Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, KSQL/ksqlDB, and Kafka Streams in production.
• Build and operate Kafka Connect pipelines integrating sources and sinks across enterprise systems.
• Design HA/DR strategies for Kafka, including MirrorMaker 2, Cluster Linking, and multi-region active-active patterns.
• Build CI/CD pipelines for Kafka topic, ACL, and connector configurations using GitOps patterns.
• Implement comprehensive observability using Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or Confluent Control Center.
• Drive Kafka cost and capacity optimization through right-sizing and storage tiering.
• Onboard application teams to Kafka with clear patterns, templates, and best practices.
• Lead incident response and post-incident reviews for streaming workloads, applying disciplined engineering practices and partnering closely with stakeholders to ensure outcomes are durable, well-documented, and aligned with broader team and platform standards.
• Mentor and coach junior and mid-level engineers through code review, design review, pair programming, and structured knowledge sharing, helping the broader team grow in technical maturity and confidence over time.
• Maintain comprehensive, current technical documentation — including architecture diagrams, design decisions, configuration references, runbooks, and operational procedures — so that the system remains supportable, auditable, and easy to onboard new engineers onto over time.
• Continuously evaluate emerging streaming technologies (Pulsar, Redpanda, AWS MSK, Azure Event Hubs).

Skills

Apache Kafka

Confluent Platform

DevOps

SRE

Python

Bash

Go

Terraform

Ansible

Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kafka Connect

Schema Registry

ksqlDB

Kafka Streams

Strimzi

Confluent Operator

AWS MSK

Job description

Kafka Engineer - Remote

Bright Vision Technologies is a technology consulting and software development company delivering cloud, AI, data, and enterprise solutions across the United States.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join an established and well-respected organization offering tremendous career growth potential.

Job Title: Kafka Engineer

Location:100% Remote (U.S.)

Position Type:Full-time, Direct W2

Salary Range:$100,000–$150,000 Annually

Experience Required:10+ years

Sponsorship:U.S. Citizens, Green Card Holders, EAD Holders, and H-1B transfer candidates are encouraged to apply. We are unable to sponsor new H-1B visa petitions for this position.

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Kafka Engineer to architect, deploy, and operate large-scale Apache Kafka and Confluent platform environments supporting mission-critical event-driven workloads. In this role you will own the Kafka platform end-to-end, including cluster sizing, configuration, security, automation, observability, and developer enablement. The ideal candidate will combine deep Kafka internals knowledge with strong DevOps and SRE practices, and will partner with application teams to deliver a reliable, performant, and developer-friendly streaming platform. In this role you will work closely with cross-functional partners — product, design, engineering, operations, and business stakeholders — to translate ambiguous requirements into well-engineered solutions, and will be expected to raise the bar through code review, design review, and mentorship of more junior engineers. The successful candidate brings strong engineering discipline, a clear communication style, and a track record of shipping meaningful work that holds up well in production.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, deploy, and operate large-scale Apache Kafka or Confluent Platform clusters across on-prem and cloud environments.


• Design partitioning, replication, and topic strategies that balance throughput, durability, and operational simplicity.


• Implement strong security on Kafka clusters using SASL, mTLS, ACLs, RBAC, and integration with corporate IdPs.


• Operate Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, KSQL/ksqlDB, and Kafka Streams in production.


• Build and operate Kafka Connect pipelines integrating sources and sinks across enterprise systems.


• Design HA/DR strategies for Kafka, including MirrorMaker 2, Cluster Linking, and multi-region active-active patterns.


• Build CI/CD pipelines for Kafka topic, ACL, and connector configurations using GitOps patterns.


• Implement comprehensive observability using Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or Confluent Control Center.


• Drive Kafka cost and capacity optimization through right-sizing and storage tiering.


• Onboard application teams to Kafka with clear patterns, templates, and best practices.


• Lead incident response and post-incident reviews for streaming workloads, applying disciplined engineering practices and partnering closely with stakeholders to ensure outcomes are durable, well-documented, and aligned with broader team and platform standards.


• Mentor and coach junior and mid-level engineers through code review, design review, pair programming, and structured knowledge sharing, helping the broader team grow in technical maturity and confidence over time.


• Maintain comprehensive, current technical documentation — including architecture diagrams, design decisions, configuration references, runbooks, and operational procedures — so that the system remains supportable, auditable, and easy to onboard new engineers onto over time.


• Continuously evaluate emerging streaming technologies (Pulsar, Redpanda, AWS MSK, Azure Event Hubs).

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.


• Five or more years of experience operating Apache Kafka or Confluent Platform in production.


• Deep, hands-on knowledge of Kafka internals (partitions, replication, ISRs, consumer groups).


• Strong experience with Kafka security (SASL, mTLS, ACLs, RBAC).


• Hands-on experience with Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, and either Kafka Streams or ksqlDB.


• Experience with HA/DR strategies for Kafka.


• Strong scripting skills in Python, Bash, or Go.


• Hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible).


• Working knowledge of observability tooling for Kafka.


• Excellent troubleshooting, communication, and documentation skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Confluent Certified Administrator or Developer credentials.


• Experience operating Kafka on Kubernetes (Strimzi, Confluent Operator).


• Exposure to managed Kafka services (AWS MSK, Azure Event Hubs Kafka API).


• Familiarity with stream processing frameworks (Flink, Spark Streaming).


• Experience with data governance and lineage for streaming data.

Bright Vision Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Statement

Bright Vision Technologies (BV Teck) is committed to equal employment opportunity (EEO) for all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status as defined by applicable federal, state, or local laws. This commitment extends to all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, compensation, promotion, transfer, leaves of absence, termination, layoffs, and recall.

BV Teck expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment or discrimination. Any improper interference with employees' ability to perform their job duties may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.