Principal Kafka Engineer

Title: Principal Kafka Engineer

Location: Cincinnati, Ohio 100% Onsite 5 Days a Week

Duration: Long Term

MOI: Onsite

Need LinkedIn and Senior Profile (14+ Years)

Please confirm the following:

1. location is not Ohio mention the actual relocation details if open for relocation mention.
2. Your willingness to work onsite in Cincinnati, OH, five days per week.
3. Your availability to attend an onsite interview.
4. Your hands-on Kafka administration experience and total years of software engineering experience.

Important Candidate Requirements

• Open only to candidates currently located in Cincinnati or elsewhere in Ohio.
• Candidates must be willing to work onsite in Cincinnati, OH, five days per week.
• Candidates must be available and ready to attend an onsite interview.
• Out-of-state candidates will not be considered unless they are already relocating to Ohio and can meet the onsite interview and work requirements.

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced Principal Kafka Engineer to lead the design, implementation, administration, and optimization of enterprise-scale Kafka and Confluent streaming platforms. The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on Kafka administration experience combined with a solid software engineering background, particularly in Java and Spring Boot.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, administer, and maintain highly available Apache Kafka and Confluent Platform environments.
• Manage Kafka clusters, brokers, topics, partitions, replication, security, and performance tuning.
• Implement and maintain Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, Avro serialization, and KSQL/ksqlDB.
• Manage Kafka cluster architecture using ZooKeeper and/or KRaft.
• Develop and support Java-based applications and microservices using Spring Boot.
• Implement infrastructure automation using Terraform, Ansible, or SaltStack.
• Support containerized applications using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Establish and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions and related DevOps tools.
• Implement monitoring, observability, distributed tracing, and performance optimization for production systems.
• Collaborate with architects, engineering teams, and globally distributed stakeholders to deliver scalable, reliable solutions.
• Apply enterprise integration patterns, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), and ITIL/ITSM practices where applicable.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software development, systems engineering, or a related technical field.
• 3 5+ years of hands-on Apache Kafka or Confluent Platform administration experience.
• Strong experience with Kafka cluster administration and production troubleshooting.
• Expertise in Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, Avro, and KSQL/ksqlDB.
• Strong programming experience in Java, with Spring Boot and microservices development.
• Experience with ZooKeeper and/or KRaft.
• Hands-on experience with Terraform, Ansible, or similar Infrastructure as Code tools.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, high availability, low-latency applications, and enterprise architecture.
• Excellent communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with observability and APM tools such as Dynatrace.
• Knowledge of networking, storage, virtualization, and infrastructure architecture.
• Experience working with Agile methodologies and globally distributed engineering teams.
• Experience supporting mission-critical enterprise production applications.