Senior Software Engineer - Kafka

Gravitee; United States; Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary up to $160k

Medical coverage

Pension / 401(k)

Stock options

25 days of holiday

Mental health days

Birthday off

Development budget

Hybrid work culture

Team events

Job summary

Gravitee is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build and maintain the Gravitee Event Gateway with Kafka as the primary protocol, spanning gateway runtime and the Gamma event-streaming surface. You’ll own US-hours L3/L4 escalations and contribute to the ESM roadmap from a Europe-based team.

You will work across security, observability, and alerting for event-driven APIs, delivering 80% feature work and 20% support, while applying AI-assisted development thoughtfully.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building and running production backend software.
• Strong Java experience with Maven and a reactive, non-blocking stack.
• Deep knowledge of the Kafka wire protocol and ecosystem.
• Familiarity with Kafka security: OAuth, PLAIN, SCRAM, SASL, SSL, ACLs.
• Observability for streaming systems: JMX metrics, lag, latency budgets.
• Hands-on with AI coding assistants in development workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design and deliver features end to end from discovery to iteration.
• Build and maintain Gravitee Event Gateway with Kafka as main protocol.
• Work with Kafka ecosystem tools and broker semantics (partitions, replication).
• Implement and support Kafka security surface (OAuth, SASL, SSL).
• Build observability and alerting for event-driven APIs using metrics.
• Apply asynchronous, non-blocking design patterns (Netty/Vert.x).
• Own US-hours Level 3/4 escalations for event-streaming customers.
• Write automated tests and participate in code/design reviews.
• Collaborate with product/design/engineering across regions.
• Share learnings and adapt as streaming tech evolves.

Skills

Backend experience

Java

Maven

Netty/Vert.x

Kafka ecosystem

Kafka security

Observability

AI-assisted development

Tools

Kafka ecosystem tools

MirrorMaker/Kafka Streams

Schema registry

Job description

Gravitee is a 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader, on a mission to govern the world’s intelligence.

We deliver the industry’s most advanced platform for Any API, Any Event, and Any AI Agent, trusted by global leaders like Michelin, Roche, and Blue Yonder.

• The Mission: We are the first to bridge traditional API Management with the new frontier of AI Agent Security
• The Momentum: A high-growth Leader - combining market credibility with startup speed
• The DNA: We hire people who Hold Nothing Back - passionate builders who want to redefine digital infrastructure

Don’t just watch the AI revolution. Build the infrastructure that controls and secures it.

The Role

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to build and maintain the Gravitee Event Gateway, with Kafka as the primary protocol — across the gateway runtime and the event-streaming experience in Gamma, Gravitee's next-generation product surface.

This is a new role. It establishes US-hours ownership of Level 3 and Level 4 incidents for the Kafka Gateway and Gravitee's event-native customers, and adds delivery capacity on the Event Stream Management (ESM) roadmap — part of building sustainable L3/L4 engineering capability in the US.

You will work across security, observability, and alerting for event-driven APIs, splitting your time roughly 80% feature delivery and 20% L3/L4 support and bug fixing (it varies week to week), as part of the ESM team, based in Europe.

This is a hands‑on, full‑stack role for an engineer who is comfortable moving between frontend experiences, backend APIs, data models, and technical design.

In This Role, You Will

• Design and deliver features end to end, from discovery and technical design through implementation, testing, release, and iteration.
• Build and maintain features of the Gravitee Event Gateway, with Kafka as the main protocol, across the gateway runtime and the event-streaming experience in Gamma.
• Work with the Kafka wire protocol and ecosystem — MirrorMaker, service providers, Kafka Streams, Kafka Connect, schema registry, and Kafka GitOps tools — plus broker semantics such as partitions, replication, and consumer groups.
• Implement and support the Kafka security surface: OAuth, PLAIN, SCRAM, SASL, SSL, and Kafka ACLs.
• Build observability and alerting for event-driven APIs using JMX metrics, consumer lag tracking, and latency budgeting under a proxy hop.
• Apply asynchronous and non-blocking design patterns (Netty/Vert.x with backpressure) to performance-sensitive gateway code. Own US-hours Level 3 and Level 4 escalations for event-streaming customers as part of the L3 pager duty rotation.
• Use LLMs and AI-assisted development tools thoughtfully for prototyping, implementation, testing, debugging, and exploration, applying sound engineering judgment to validate AI-generated work.
• Write meaningful automated tests and contribute to reliable delivery practices. Collaborate with product managers, designers, engineers, and technical leaders — including the ESM team based in Europe — to discover effective solutions and improve them through code and design reviews.
• Share what you learn and help the team make practical choices as streaming technologies and protocols evolve.

We are looking for evidence that you can succeed in the role, whether gained through employment, open-source work, or equivalent practical experience:

• 5+ years building and running production backend software, on a team that ships and supports its own product; you have personally resolved production incidents.
• Strong Java experience (C# accepted if the object-oriented depth is there), with Maven and a reactive, non-blocking stack such as Netty/Vert.x with backpressure.
• Solid understanding of asynchronous systems and event-driven architecture patterns, and the Kafka wire protocol and ecosystem (MirrorMaker, Kafka Streams, Kafka Connect, schema registry).
• Working knowledge of Kafka broker semantics: partitions, replication, and consumer groups.
• Familiarity with the Kafka security surface: OAuth, PLAIN, SCRAM, SASL, SSL, and Kafka ACLs.
• Experience with observability for streaming systems: JMX metrics, consumer lag, and latency budgeting under a proxy hop.
• Git-based workflow, code review, and writing your own automated tests.
• Hands‑on experience using LLMs or AI coding assistants as part of an engineering workflow, combined with the judgment to review and improve their output.
• Clear communication, collaborative problem-solving, and the ability to take an ambiguous problem through to production.

Desired Skills

You do not need to match every item. We would be especially interested in experience with:

• Experience at a streaming vendor, or on the Kafka platform team of a large company (e.g., Confluent, Redpanda, Aiven, Conduktor, AWS MSK, or large Kafka platform teams such as LinkedIn, Uber, or Netflix).
• Operating MSK or Confluent Cloud at scale; performance benchmarking of network services.
• Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud-native application delivery.
• Working knowledge of Angular/TypeScript.
• Open-source software or enterprise developer platforms.

Who Thrives at Gravitee

Our growth is powered by people who bring passion to what they build, professionalism to how they work, and a commitment to doing things well.

You Will Thrive Here If You

• Bring energy and a constructive attitude to the team.
• Adapt quickly and enjoy learning unfamiliar technologies and domains.
• Take ownership, communicate clearly, and follow through with urgency.
• Balance delivery speed with thoughtful engineering judgment.
• Start with the customer problem and care about the quality of the experience you create.
• Enjoy working in a fast-moving, collaborative, international environment.

Life at Gravitee

At Gravitee, we invest in humans, not just roles.

You’ll Get

• Salary up to $160k depending on experience
• Competitive medical coverage.
• Pension / 401(k) program options.
• Stock options - you build it, you own it.
• 25 days of holiday plus in-country national holidays.
• Three mental health days and a wellness allowance.
• Your birthday off.
• A professional development budget to support your growth.
• A hybrid work culture with hubs across regions.
• Quarterly team events and an annual company offsite.
• A collaborative, international company culture.
• Opportunities to grow your scope and career as Gravitee grows.

At Gravitee, we believe diverse perspectives make better products and stronger teams.

No employee or applicant will be treated less favorably on the grounds of sex, marital status, race, color, nationality, ethnic or national origin, disability, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, pregnancy or maternity, marital or civil partner status, religion, or belief.

By applying, you consent to Gravitee storing and processing the personal information you submit as part of the recruitment process.