Staff Engineer – PaaS Messaging/Kafka (Remote)

GEICO; Louisville (KY); Remote; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative company is looking for a Staff Engineer to join their PaaS Messaging team. In this pivotal role, you'll drive the transformation of their insurance business by fostering engineering excellence and continuous improvement. You will collaborate with talented engineers to innovate and enhance systems, lead strategic initiatives, and provide thought leadership across the organization. This position offers the opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies and influence the direction of product roadmaps while ensuring high-quality, scalable solutions. If you're passionate about technology and eager to make a significant impact, this role is perfect for you.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional experience in engineering roles.
• Deep experience in system design and scalable distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with teams to innovate and improve systems.
• Lead technical roadmap execution to enhance product delivery.

Skills

System Design

Data Pipelines

Scalable Distributed Systems

Java

Go

Python

C++

Kafka

Pulsar

ActiveMQ

Cloud Services (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Analytical Problem-Solving

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Equivalent experience

Tools

Kafka Connectors

Infrastructure as Code

Developer Tooling

Monitoring Software

Job description

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

Responsibilities

1. Collaborate with engineers to innovate, build, improve, and identify new opportunities for systems.
2. Lead strategy and execution of a technical roadmap to increase product delivery velocity and unlock engineering capabilities.
3. Provide technical thought leadership across the enterprise.
4. Work with product managers, teams, and customers to solve complex problems.
5. Develop and execute strategies within the Platform Engineering domain.
6. Ensure quality, usability, and performance of solutions.
7. Mentor and influence engineering and product teams, including executives.
8. Share best practices and improve processes across teams.
9. Analyze costs, resource requirements, and operational processes.
10. Participate in on-call and operational support.

Qualifications

• Deep experience in system design, data pipelines, and scalable distributed systems.
• Proficiency in languages such as Java, Go, Python, C++, etc.
• Expertise in open-source messaging and event streaming platforms like Kafka, Pulsar, ActiveMQ, with understanding of key concepts.
• Experience building Kafka Connectors or similar tooling.
• Ability to influence engineering direction and product roadmaps.
• Experience with continuous delivery, infrastructure as code, and cloud services like AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and analytical problem-solving.
• Familiarity with developer tooling and monitoring software.

Experience & Education

• 6+ years of professional experience.
• 4+ years working with open-source frameworks.
• 3+ years in architecture and design.
• Experience with cloud services preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience.