Senior Kafka Platform Engineer - Cloud & Security

Ovations Talent Sourcing; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Ovations Talent Sourcing is seeking a Senior Systems/Platform Engineer in Johannesburg to own and optimise our Kafka ecosystem. The role focuses on designing, deploying, and maintaining production Kafka clusters (Confluent Platform/Cloud) with strong automation, security, and cloud integration.

You will automate tooling and CI/CD using Terraform, Ansible, Python or Bash, while ensuring high availability, observability, and robust security controls across the stack.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in Systems or Platform Engineering.
• 4+ years Apache Kafka administration.
• Azure cloud infrastructure with CI/CD and Infrastructure-as-Code.

Responsibilities

• Kafka Platform Administration: Design, deploy, configure, and maintain production Kafka clusters (Confluent Platform and/or Confluent Cloud).
• Automation & IaC: Provision, manage, and automate cloud infrastructure and deployment pipelines using Terraform, Ansible, and Python/Bash scripting.
• Security & Compliance: Implement and enforce end-to-end Kafka security controls, including TLS/SSL encryption, SASL authentication, and ACLs.
• Observability & Performance: Build and optimize real-time monitoring, logging, and alerting systems using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Splunk, or Azure Monitor.
• Linux Systems Engineering: Troubleshoot complex low-level Linux systems, network, and platform-level issues to ensure high availability and reliability.

Skills

Kafka Administration

Terraform

Ansible

Python/Bash

Linux Troubleshooting

Azure Cloud

Security & Compliance

Tools

Confluent Platform

Confluent Cloud

Prometheus

Grafana

ELK

Azure Monitor

Job description

Ovations Talent Sourcing is seeking a Senior Systems/Platform Engineer in Johannesburg to own and optimise our Kafka ecosystem. The role focuses on designing, deploying, and maintaining production Kafka clusters (Confluent Platform/Cloud) with strong automation, security, and cloud integration.

You will automate tooling and CI/CD using Terraform, Ansible, Python or Bash, while ensuring high availability, observability, and robust security controls across the stack.