Sr. Kafka Platform Engineer

Tuppl Inc.; Blue Ash (OH); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Tuppl Inc. seeks a Sr. Kafka Platform Engineer to oversee the scale, reliability, and optimization of a complex enterprise event-streaming ecosystem. You will apply OO design and automation, supporting large-scale production systems with global teams and ITSM practices.

The role emphasizes Kafka expertise, Java backend development, and DevOps practices to ensure high availability, low latency, and robust platform governance across on-prem and cloud environments.

Qualifications

• Extensive Kafka Administration experience in enterprise environments.
• 12+ years of software development or systems engineering experience.
• Proven ability to design and implement scalable event-driven platforms.

Responsibilities

• Deploy, configure, and maintain highly available Kafka clusters across on-premises and cloud environments (Azure, GCP).
• Design reusable automation frameworks and APIs using Java.
• Lead ITSM-aligned lifecycle management (incident, problem, change) for platform reliability.
• Monitor and optimize performance with observability stacks (dynaTrace, Prometheus, Grafana).

Skills

Kafka Administration

Java & Spring Boot

CI/CD (GitHub Actions)

IaC (Terraform/Ansible)

ITSM/ITIL

Observability (dynaTrace/Prometheus/GF

Distributed systems design

Networking/Storage/Virtualization

Problem solving & communication

Agile methodologies

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

GitHub Actions

Prometheus

Grafana

dynaTrace

KRaft

Zookeeper

Kafka Connect

Schema Registry

Job description

We are seeking a Sr. Kafka Platform Engineer to lead the management, scaling, and optimization of our enterprise event-streaming ecosystem. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Apache/Confluent Kafka, applies object-oriented programming principles to advanced automation, and uses ITSM practices to support reliable, high-quality service delivery.

This role supports one of the world's largest Fortune 20 retailers and offers the opportunity to work in a rapidly expanding enterprise environment.

Required Qualifications:

Experience:

• 12+ years of Kafka Administration experience
• 12+ years of Software Development or systems engineering

Technical Skills:

• Expertise in Apache Kafka / Confluent Platform — Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, Avro, KSQL
• Proficient in Cluster Management — Zookeeper, KRaft
• Java backend development with Spring Boot
• Solid understanding of software design patterns
• Strong knowledge of architecture and design concepts, with the ability to create and maintain architecture artifacts
• Hands-on with IaC — Terraform, Ansible, or Salt
• DevOps, CI/CD, GitHub Actions
• Domain Driven Design (DDD) and Enterprise Application Integration
• Observability — dynaTrace, Prometheus, Grafana
• Good understanding of networking, storage, virtualization, and infrastructure architecture
• Self-starter with a goal-oriented mindset
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and problem-solving skills
• Experience supporting Highly Available, Low Latency enterprise applications in production
• Experience working with globally distributed teams
• Solid understanding of ITSM/ITIL frameworks and Agile methodologies

Desired Qualifications:

• Front-end development: Angular, React (preferred), or other TypeScript-based frameworks
• Experience working in platform teams

Preferred Certifications:

• Cloud provider certifications — Azure Certified Solutions Architect
• Confluent Certified Administrator for Apache Kafka (CCAAK)
• TOGAF

Key Responsibilities:

Kafka Administration:

• Deploy, configure, and maintain highly available Kafka clusters across on-premises and cloud environments, including Azure and GCP
• Manage topics, partitions, and replication to ensure platform reliability

OOP-Based Development and Automation:

• Design and build reusable frameworks, automation tools, and APIs using Java
• Simplify cluster provisioning, monitoring, and self-service onboarding

ITSM Integration:

• Manage the platform lifecycle through ITSM processes — incident, problem, and change management
• Reduce downtime and maintain SLA compliance

Security and Compliance:

• Implement and maintain security controls and authentication mechanisms

Performance Optimization:

• Monitor cluster health with tools such as dynaTrace, Prometheus, and Grafana
• Perform capacity planning and tuning to support high-throughput data pipelines
• Partner with DevOps and application teams to provide guidance on event-driven architecture and producer/consumer performance best practices