Resident Solution Architect - Confluent

IBM; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Global Sales is seeking a Solutions Architect to guide customers in designing and operating streaming data architectures, leveraging Apache Kafka, Confluent products, and related technologies such as Spark, Flink, Kubernetes, and both relational and NoSQL databases. You will lead implementations, drive best practices, and collaborate across teams to deliver high-impact solutions.

You will also work with customers to modernize data platforms, communicate complex concepts clearly, and travel

Qualifications

• Deep experience designing, building, and operating in-production data solutions (Big Data/streaming).
• Proven track record managing multiple B2B software projects and driving adoption.
• Experience with Linux (RedHat/Debian).
• Experience with cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• JVM tuning and troubleshooting expertise.
• Hands-on with IaC/CI-CD tools (Terraform, Ansible).
• Proficient in Java with strong communication and consulting skills.
• Willingness to travel up to 25%.

Responsibilities

• Consult with customers to provide software architecture, design, and operations expertise for streaming architectures.
• Develop and advocate best practices and gather product feedback.
• Build strong relationships with customers and ensure high delivery standards.
• Assist customers in building state-of-the-art streaming data infrastructure and optimize deployments.
• Lead hands-on implementation of production-ready deployments.
• Contribute to documentation and knowledge bases based on customer experiences.
• Engage in community and industry events.

Skills

Apache Kafka

Confluent products

Spark

Flink

Relational databases

NoSQL databases

Java

Linux

Cloud platforms

JVM tuning

Communication skills

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Kubernetes

Job description

Introduction

At IBM Global Sales, we bring together innovation, collaboration, and expertise to help clients solve their most complex business challenges. Working across industries and geographies, you’ll partner with colleagues, clients, and partners to co-create solutions that drive digital transformation and lasting impact.Success in Global Sales is built on curiosity, empathy, and collaboration. You’ll connect technical understanding with strong people skills, building trusted relationships and shaping solutions that improve business and society. With world-class onboarding, continuous learning, and a supportive culture, IBM offers the tools and opportunities to grow your career. Join us and be part of a global team that’s passionate about driving innovation and making a difference.

Introduction

At IBM Global Sales, we bring together innovation, collaboration, and expertise to help clients solve their most complex business challenges. Working across industries and geographies, you’ll partner with colleagues, clients, and partners to co-create solutions that drive digital transformation and lasting impact.Success in Global Sales is built on curiosity, empathy, and collaboration. You’ll connect technical understanding with strong people skills, building trusted relationships and shaping solutions that improve business and society. With world-class onboarding, continuous learning, and a supportive culture, IBM offers the tools and opportunities to grow your career. Join us and be part of a global team that’s passionate about driving innovation and making a difference.

Your Role And Responsibilities

As a Solutions Architect (SA), you will help customers leverage streaming architectures and applications to achieve their mission outcomes. In this role, you will:

• Consult directly with customers to provide software architecture, design, and operations expertise that leverages your deep knowledge of and experience in Apache Kafka, the Confluent’s products, and complementary systems such as Spark, Flink, Kubernetes, and relational and NoSQL databases;
• Develop and advocate best practices, gather product feedback, and help customers overcome their operational challenges;
• Build a strong relationship with your customer in a very short space of time, ensuring exemplary delivery standards;
• In partnership with industry leading colleagues, have the opportunity to help customers build a state-of-the-art streaming data infrastructure, and optimize and debug customers' existing deployments.

What You Will Do

• Guide customers in developing strategies to modernize their data platforms and move toward event-driven architectures through workshops and hands-on collaboration. Such engagements often involve remote preparation, presenting onsite or remotely, investigating (with Engineering and other coworkers) solutions to difficult challenges, and writing a recommendations summary doc
• Provide feedback to the Confluent Product and Engineering groups
• Build tooling for another team or the wider company to help us push our technical boundaries and improve our ability to deliver consistently with high quality
• Test performance and functionality of new components developed by Engineering
• Write or edit documentation and knowledge base articles, including reference architecture materials and design patterns based on customer experiences. Hone your skills, building applications, or trying out new product features
• Participate in community and industry events
• Lead the hands‑on implementation of production‑ready deployments, guiding customer teams through the entire lifecycle from initial development to a successful production launch.

Required Technical And Professional Expertise

Deep experience designing, building, and operating in‑production Big Data, stream processing, and/or enterprise data integration solutions, ideally using Apache Kafka

• Demonstrated experience successfully managing multiple B2B infrastructure software development projects, including driving expansion, customer satisfaction, feature adoption, and retention
• Experience operating Linux (configure, tune, and troubleshoot both RedHat and Debian‑based distributions)
• Experience using cloud providers (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure) for running high‑throughput systems
• Experience with Java Virtual Machine (JVM) tuning and troubleshooting
• Experience with modern distributed data systems, such as cloud data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks), container orchestration (Kubernetes, OpenShift), and other NoSQL or stream processing technologies.
• Hands‑on experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD tools, particularly Terraform for cloud automation and Ansible for on‑premise deployments.
• Proficiency in Java
• Excellent communication and consulting skills, with an ability to clearly and concisely explain tricky issues and complex solutions
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 25% of the time to meet with customers