Staff Engineer – PaaS Messaging/Kafka (Remote)

GEICO; Portland (ME); Remote; USD 105,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company is seeking a Staff Engineer to join their PaaS Messaging team. This role involves driving transformation towards engineering excellence, collaborating on innovative solutions, and providing technical leadership. The ideal candidate will have deep experience in system design and proficiency in OOP languages. The position offers a competitive salary range and opportunities for professional growth.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional experience.
• 4+ years with open-source frameworks.
• 3+ years in architecture and design.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with engineers to innovate and enhance systems.
• Lead technical roadmap execution to increase product delivery.
• Mentor and coach engineering staff.

Skills

System Design

Data Pipelines

OOP

Influencing Engineering

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

Kafka

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

GEICO is seeking an experienced Staff Engineer to join our PaaS Messaging team. You will help drive our insurance business transformation as we transition from a traditional IT model to a tech organization focused on engineering excellence, fostering a culture of psychological safety and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

1. Collaborate with engineers to innovate, build, improve, and enhance systems, and identify new opportunities for applying expertise.
2. Lead the 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 software development strategies for Platform Engineering.
6. Ensure quality, usability, and performance of solutions.
7. Mentor and coach engineering staff, influence technical direction, and educate stakeholders.
8. Share best practices and improve processes.
9. Analyze costs, resource requirements, and operational processes to meet business goals.
10. Support on-call and operational responsibilities.

Qualifications

• Deep experience in system design, data pipelines, and scalable distributed systems.
• Proficiency in at least one OOP language (e.g., Java, Go, Python, C++).
• Expertise with open-source messaging platforms like Kafka, Pulsar, ActiveMQ, including concepts such as Topic Scaling and Consumer Groups.
• Experience developing Kafka Connectors or similar tooling.
• Strong ability to influence engineering and product direction.
• Experience with cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and software development lifecycle tools.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and monitoring tools is a plus.

Experience & Education

• 6+ years of professional experience.
• 4+ years with open-source frameworks.
• 3+ years in architecture and design.
• Experience with cloud platforms (preferred).
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent.

Salary

$105,000.00 - $230,000.00 annually, with factors considered for final offer.