Staff Engineer – PaaS Messaging/Kafka (Remote)

GEICO; Boston (MA); Remote; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative company is seeking a Staff Engineer to join their PaaS Messaging team. This role focuses on building high-performance platforms and driving business transformation through technology. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in open-source messaging and event streaming, particularly with Kafka and Pulsar. You will collaborate with senior engineers to enhance systems, develop technical strategies, and mentor team members. This position offers a chance to influence engineering direction and contribute to a culture of continuous improvement and excellence. Join a forward-thinking organization that values innovation and teamwork.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in complex system design and scalable systems.
• Proficiency in OOP languages like Java, Go, or Python.
• Experience with open-source messaging platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical strategies for the Platform Engineering domain.
• Collaborate with teams to solve complex engineering problems.
• Mentor engineers and improve processes.

Skills

Kafka

Pulsar

ActiveMQ

Java

Python

Go

C++

CI/CD

Data Structures

Analytical Problem-Solving

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

GIT

Jenkins

CircleCI

SonarQube

Terraform

Ansible

Grafana

Prometheus

Azure Service Bus

Azure Event Hub

Job description

GEICO is seeking an experienced Staff Engineer to join our PaaS Messaging team. This team focuses on building high-performance, low-maintenance, zero-downtime platforms and applications. The role involves driving our insurance business transformation by transitioning from traditional IT to a tech organization emphasizing engineering excellence, psychological safety, and continuous improvement.

The successful candidate will collaborate with distinguished and senior engineers to innovate, build, and enhance systems, and identify new opportunities. You will lead the strategy and execution of a technical roadmap to increase product delivery velocity and unlock new capabilities. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in open-source messaging and event streaming, with proven experience in Kafka, Pulsar, and/or ActiveMQ.

As a Staff Engineer, your responsibilities include:

1. Providing technical thought leadership across the enterprise.
2. Collaborating with product managers, team members, customers, and other engineering teams to solve complex problems.
3. Developing and executing technical strategies for the Platform Engineering domain.
4. Ensuring the quality, usability, and performance of solutions.
5. Mentoring and coaching engineers and influencing leadership.
6. Sharing best practices and improving processes.
7. Analyzing costs, forecasting, and supporting resource planning.
8. Supporting operational processes and continuous learning.
9. Participating in on-call and operational support.

Qualifications:

• Extensive experience in complex system design, data pipelines, and scalable distributed systems.
• Proficiency in at least one OOP language such as Java, Go, Python, or C++.
• Experience with open-source messaging platforms like Kafka, Pulsar, ActiveMQ, or RabbitMQ, including concepts like Topic Scaling, Partitions, and Consumer Groups.
• Experience developing Kafka Connectors or similar tooling.
• Ability to influence engineering direction and product roadmaps through experimentation and design.
• Experience collaborating with engineering teams and deploying research to production.
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and related tools.
• Strong understanding of CS data structures and algorithms.
• Experience with analytical problem-solving using quantitative methods.
• Familiarity with developer tooling across the software development lifecycle.
• Experience with enterprise-scale open-source messaging platforms.
• Knowledge of CI/CD tools like GIT, Jenkins, CircleCI, SonarQube, and infrastructure tools like Terraform or Ansible is a plus.
• Knowledge of monitoring tools like Grafana and Prometheus is a plus.
• Familiarity with Azure Service Bus and Azure Event Hub is a plus.

Experience:

• 6+ years of professional experience.
• 4+ years in open-source frameworks.
• 3+ years in architecture and design.
• 3+ years working with cloud services like AWS, GCP, or Azure is preferred.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent experience.