Confluent Kafka Engineer

We are looking for an experienced Lead Confluent Kafka Engineer to lead the implementation, administration, and operational support of Apache Kafka and the Confluent Platform. This role requires deep hands-on expertise in Kafka, Java, Spring Boot, Linux, security, troubleshooting, and data streaming technologies. The successful candidate will ensure the delivery of secure, scalable, and highly available messaging platforms that support critical business functions. This is a full-time, onsite position based in Islamabad, requiring 5 to 10 years of relevant experience and a bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.

Key Responsibilities

- Install, configure, administer, and support Apache Kafka and Confluent Platform environments across Development, UAT, and Production stages.
- Manage Kafka cluster setup, including broker configuration, topic management, partitioning, replication strategies, retention policies, and capacity planning.
- Perform Kafka upgrades, patch deployments, rolling restarts, configuration updates, and cluster scaling while ensuring production stability.
- Deploy and maintain Kafka ecosystem components such as Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, Control Center, and related services.
- Troubleshoot and resolve production issues related to broker performance, partitions, ISR, replication, consumer lag, latency, throughput, storage utilization, and connectivity.
- Configure and maintain Kafka security controls including TLS/mTLS, SASL authentication, ACLs, certificates, keystores, and truststores.
- Support and troubleshoot Java/Spring Boot Kafka applications, including producer and consumer integrations.
- Collaborate with application, infrastructure, DevOps, and security teams to onboard new Kafka workloads and facilitate environment promotions.
- Contribute to CI/CD processes, deployment automation, release management, and configuration control for Kafka platforms and applications.
- Conduct regular health monitoring, performance optimization, capacity forecasting, incident response, and root cause analysis.
- Develop and maintain operational documentation, deployment guidelines, configuration standards, disaster recovery procedures, and runbooks.
- Support high availability, backup and recovery operations, disaster recovery strategies, and multi-cluster replication architectures as needed.

Required Qualifications

- Proven hands-on experience supporting Apache Kafka and Confluent Platform in production environments.
- Strong understanding of Kafka architecture, including brokers, partitions, replication, ISR, consumer groups, offsets, retention policies, and delivery guarantees.
- Experience with Kafka installation, configuration, upgrades, patch management, and ongoing operational support.
- Proficient development and integration skills using Java and Spring Boot for Kafka-based applications.
- Solid expertise in Linux administration, networking, JVM performance tuning, production troubleshooting, and operational support.
- Experience implementing and managing Kafka security, including TLS/mTLS, SASL, ACLs, and certificate management.
- Hands-on experience with Confluent Kafka solutions.
- Practical knowledge of data streaming platforms and real-time event-driven architectures.

Preferred Qualifications and Benefits

- Experience with Kubernetes, OpenShift, Anthos, Helm, and containerized Kafka deployments.
- Familiarity with Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, and Confluent Control Center.
- Working knowledge of CI/CD platforms such as Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, or similar tools.
- Monitoring and observability experience using Splunk, AppDynamics, Prometheus, Grafana, or Confluent monitoring solutions.
- Understanding of Kafka disaster recovery, multi-cluster deployments, replication strategies, and migration projects.
- Experience supporting Kafka environments within banking, telecommunications, or other business-critical enterprise domains.

This role offers the opportunity to work on cutting-edge streaming technologies within a dynamic and collaborative environment, driving innovation and operational excellence.