Senior Kafka Platform Engineer

Aquent; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 206,309,000 - 229,233,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Subsidized health, vision, and dental

Retirement plan with match

Job summary

Aquent in Austin, TX is seeking a Senior Kafka Platform Engineer for an on-site role. The position focuses on distributed data streaming architectures powering core financial services operations and requires hands-on Kafka and AI-enabled tooling expertise.

You will design secure, scalable pipelines, ensure reliability, and drive automation across the SDLC. Strong collaboration with engineering and operations teams is essential for success.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in distributed systems, messaging, and enterprise platform engineering.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Confluent Kafka Platform across on-prem and cloud.
• Experience leveraging AI-powered tools and building AI-driven agents to accelerate teams.
• Strong Linux/Unix, networking, OS performance and security skills.
• Automation, DevOps practices, and robust operational tooling experience.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement secure Kafka architectures with authentication, authorization, encryption, and network isolation.
• Define high availability, disaster recovery, and data replication strategies for critical systems.
• Ensure data streaming solutions meet security, compliance, and governance standards.
• Advise on ingestion, event streaming, batch and stream processing architectures.
• Provide guidance on data modeling and serialization (Avro, Protobuf, JSON Schema).
• Lead AI-driven agent initiatives to automate engineering and operational workflows.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams and vendors to achieve project goals.
• Drive automation-first operations using Python, Ansible, and scripting.

Skills

Distributed systems

Confluent Kafka

AI-powered tools

Linux/Unix

DevOps practices

GitHub Copilot

Tools

Confluent Kafka Platform

GitHub Copilot

Jenkins

Job description

Senior Kafka Platform Engineer

This is an on‑site role in Austin.

Pay Range: $72/hr – $80/hr

Aquent, a premier talent solutions partner, is excited to collaborate with a leading organization at the forefront of financial services innovation. This company is dedicated to empowering its clients through robust, scalable technology solutions, driving forward the future of financial platforms. We are seeking a visionary Engineering professional to join their dynamic team and make a significant impact on critical distributed systems and data streaming initiatives.

As a Senior Kafka Platform Engineer, you will be at the heart of designing, implementing, and optimizing high-performance data streaming architectures that power crucial operations. Your expertise will directly influence the reliability, security, and scalability of foundational platforms, ensuring seamless data flow across the enterprise. This is an unparalleled opportunity to shape the future of their technical landscape, leverage cutting‑edge AI tools, and drive transformative solutions that enhance both engineering efficiency and customer experience.

What You’ll Do:

• Design and implement secure Kafka architectures, including authentication, authorization, encryption, and network isolation.
• Define and support high availability, disaster recovery, and data replication strategies for critical systems.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise security, compliance, and governance standards for all data streaming solutions.
• Advise on optimal data ingestion, event streaming, batch, and stream processing architectures.
• Provide expert guidance on data modeling and serialization standards (Avro, Protobuf, JSON Schema).
• Support enterprise integration use cases and resolve complex Kafka‑related integration challenges.
• Design and build AI agents, custom skills, or equivalent frameworks to automate engineering and operational workflows at scale.
• Leverage AI‑powered tools (e.g., Copilot, AI agents) to accelerate development, automate testing, improve code quality, and enable intelligent SDLC workflows.
• Design agentic workflows and multi‑agent orchestration patterns to solve complex distributed systems, integration, and operational challenges.
• Drive automation‑first operations using Python, Ansible, and scripting to enhance efficiency.
• Build and maintain self‑service operational tools to significantly reduce day‑to‑day support overhead.
• Integrate Kafka platform operations with robust DevOps and CI/CD tooling (e.g., Azure, Jenkins, Puppet, Chef).
• Lead deep‑dive investigations into complex production issues and outages, performing root cause analysis.
• Document findings and drive remediation efforts to successful closure, operating effectively in high‑pressure incident management scenarios.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor to engineering, operations, and leadership teams.
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly and effectively to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrate strong customer focus, ownership, and collaborative engagement.
• Collaborate effectively with cross‑functional teams and external vendors to achieve project goals.

Must‑Have Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in distributed systems, messaging, and enterprise platform engineering.
• Extensive hands‑on experience with Confluent Kafka Platform, covering both on‑premise and cloud deployments.
• Proven experience leveraging AI‑powered tools and building AI‑driven agents to accelerate development and improve team productivity and efficiency.
• Strong background in Linux/Unix environments, including expertise in networking, OS performance, and security.
• Demonstrated experience with automation, DevOps practices, and operational tooling.
• Strong hands‑on experience with GitHub Copilot and other AI‑assisted development tools, including advanced prompt engineering and workflow integration.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts.
• Strong organizational, relationship management, and teamwork skills.

Nice‑to‑Have Qualifications:

• Confluent Kafka and/or Cloud certifications.
• Prior experience supporting large‑scale, regulated enterprise environments.

Our eligible talent get access to amazing benefits like subsidized health, vision, and dental plans, paid sick leave, and retirement plans with a match.

Aquent is an equal‑opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics.