Staff Engineer – PaaS Messaging/Kafka (Remote)

GEICO; Minneapolis (MN); Remote; USD 105,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is on the lookout for a Staff Engineer to join their innovative PaaS Messaging team. This role is pivotal in transforming traditional IT into a tech-focused organization dedicated to engineering excellence. You will collaborate with top engineers to innovate and build high-performance systems while mentoring teams and driving technical strategies. If you have a passion for open-source messaging and event streaming, and a strong background in system design, this is the perfect opportunity to make a significant impact in a dynamic and supportive environment.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience in complex system design and scalable distributed systems.
• Proficiency in at least one OOP language such as Java, Go, Python, or C++.
• Experience with open-source messaging and event streaming platforms.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical thought leadership across the enterprise.
• Collaborate with product managers and engineering teams to solve complex problems.
• Develop technical strategies for the Platform Engineering domain.

Skills

Open-source messaging

Event streaming

Kafka

Pulsar

ActiveMQ

Java

Go

Python

C++

CI/CD

Data pipelines

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. The team focuses on building high-performance, low-maintenance, zero-downtime platforms and applications. You will help drive our insurance business transformation, transitioning from a traditional IT model to a tech organization committed to 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 systems, and identify new opportunities. 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 expertise in open-source messaging and event streaming, with proven experience with Kafka, Pulsar, and/or ActiveMQ.

As a Staff Engineer, you will:

• Provide technical thought leadership across the enterprise
• Collaborate with product managers, team members, customers, and other engineering teams to solve complex problems
• Develop and implement technical strategies for the Platform Engineering domain
• Ensure the quality, usability, and performance of solutions
• Mentor and coach engineering and product teams, influencing and educating executives
• Share best practices and improve processes across teams
• Analyze costs, forecast, and incorporate them into business plans
• Determine resource needs, evaluate operational processes, and measure outcomes to ensure results
• 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 and event streaming platforms like Kafka, Pulsar, ActiveMQ, RabbitMQ, including understanding of concepts like Topic Scaling, Partitions, Consumer Groups
• Experience developing Kafka Connectors or related tooling
• Ability to design, experiment, and influence engineering and product roadmaps
• Experience translating research into production environments
• Knowledge of CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and related tools
• Strong understanding of CS data structures and algorithms
• Analytical problem-solving skills with quantitative approaches
• Familiarity with developer tooling across the software lifecycle
• Experience in building enterprise-scale messaging platforms
• Knowledge of CI/CD tools (GIT, Jenkins, CircleCI, SonarQube), Terraform, Ansible is a plus
• Experience with 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 with open-source frameworks
• 3+ years in architecture and design
• 3+ years working with cloud services like AWS, GCP, Azure preferred

Education:

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

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Salary Range: $105,000 – $230,000 annually. The final salary depends on experience, education, location, and market considerations.

GEICO considers sponsoring qualified applicants for employment authorization.