Staff Engineer – PaaS Messaging/Kafka (Remote)

GEICO; Charleston (WV); Remote; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is on the lookout for a talented Staff Engineer to join their PaaS Messaging team. This role is pivotal in driving the transformation of their insurance business into a tech-centric organization, emphasizing engineering excellence and continuous improvement. You'll collaborate with distinguished engineers to innovate and build systems that enhance product delivery velocity. If you possess deep technical expertise in open-source messaging and event streaming, particularly with Kafka and Pulsar, and are eager to influence engineering direction, this opportunity is perfect for you. Join a dynamic team where your contributions will shape the future of technology in the insurance sector.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in complex system design and data pipelines.
• Proficiency in Java, Go, Python, or C++ required.
• Experience with Kafka, Pulsar, and ActiveMQ essential.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical strategy and execution for Platform Engineering.
• Collaborate with teams to solve complex engineering problems.
• Mentor and coach engineering teams, sharing best practices.

Skills

System Design

Data Pipelines

Distributed Systems

Java

Go

Python

C++

Kafka

Pulsar

ActiveMQ

CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Grafana

Prometheus

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. You will help drive our insurance business transformation as we shift from a traditional IT model to a tech organization emphasizing engineering excellence, fostering a culture of psychological safety and continuous improvement.

In this role, you will collaborate with the Distinguished Engineer and Senior Engineers to innovate, build new systems, improve existing ones, and identify new opportunities to apply your expertise to solve critical problems. You will lead the strategy and execution of a technical roadmap to increase product delivery velocity and unlock new engineering capabilities. The ideal candidate has deep technical expertise in open-source messaging and event streaming domains with proven experience in Kafka, Pulsar, and/or ActiveMQ.

As a Staff Engineer, you will:

• Provide technical thought leadership across multiple areas in the enterprise
• Collaborate with product managers, team members, customers, and other engineering teams to solve complex problems
• Develop and execute a technical strategy for the Platform Engineering domain
• Ensure the quality, usability, and performance of solutions
• Mentor and coach engineering and product teams, influence and educate executives
• Share best practices and improve processes across teams
• Analyze costs and forecasts, integrating them into business plans
• Determine resource requirements, evaluate operational processes, and support continuous learning
• Participate in on-call and operational support

Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience in complex system design, data pipelines, 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, RabbitMQ, including understanding concepts like Topic Scaling, Partitions, Consumer Groups
• Experience building Kafka Connectors or related tooling
• Ability to design, experiment, and influence engineering direction and product roadmap
• Experience transitioning research into production environments
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code tools like Terraform or Ansible is a plus
• Familiarity with monitoring tools like Grafana and Prometheus is a plus
• Knowledge of other messaging solutions like 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 with cloud services like AWS, GCP, or Azure (preferred)

Education:

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