Kafka Developer/Admin/Engineer

We are urgently seeking a highly skilled and experienced Kafka Developer/Admin/Engineer to join our dynamic team in O’Fallon, MO. This is an exciting onsite contract opportunity for a professional passionate about building robust, scalable, and high-performance data streaming solutions. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in Kafka administration and development, coupled with strong DevOps practices and a solid understanding of distributed systems and cloud environments, particularly AWS.

As a key member of our engineering team, you will be instrumental in designing, implementing, and maintaining critical Kafka infrastructure, ensuring optimal performance and reliability for our core applications. This role requires a proactive individual who can thrive in a fast-paced environment and contribute significantly to our data architecture vision as a dedicated Kafka Developer/Admin/Engineer.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and implement high-volume, low-latency data streaming solutions using Kafka, ensuring scalability and fault tolerance.
• Administer, monitor, and maintain Kafka clusters, including configuration, tuning, and troubleshooting to ensure optimal performance and uptime.
• Automate Kafka infrastructure deployment, operations, and scaling using tools like Ansible and various scripting languages such as Shell Scripting and Python.
• Collaborate closely with SRE and DevOps teams to integrate Kafka into CI/CD pipelines leveraging tools like Jenkins, Git, and Bitbucket for seamless deployment and release management.
• Provide expert production support for Kafka and related distributed systems, diagnosing and resolving complex issues efficiently to minimize downtime.
• Implement and manage comprehensive monitoring solutions for Kafka clusters and data pipelines using tools such as Splunk, Dynatrace, and Prometheus.
• Develop and optimize Java applications and services that interact with Kafka, ensuring efficient data processing and integration.
• Manage and maintain Kafka environments hosted on Linux operating systems and within AWS Cloud infrastructure.

Requirements

• Proven professional experience as a Kafka Developer/Admin/Engineer or a similar role focused on real-time data streaming.
• Strong expertise in Apache Kafka, including experience with Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, and Kafka security best practices.
• Hands-on experience with other messaging queue technologies like IBM MQ is highly desirable.
• Demonstrable experience with automation tools, particularly Ansible, for infrastructure as code and configuration management.
• Solid understanding and practical application of SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) and DevOps principles, including continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).
• Proficiency in Java programming and experience working in Linux environments.
• Familiarity with CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, Git, and Bitbucket for version control and automated deployments.
• Competency in scripting languages like Shell Scripting and Python for automation and system administration tasks.
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools including Splunk, Dynatrace, and Prometheus for system health and performance analysis.
• Working knowledge of AWS Cloud services and experience with designing and managing distributed systems.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently or as part of a collaborative team in an onsite setting in O'Fallon, MO.

What We Offer

• An engaging and challenging contract opportunity to work on mission-critical projects involving advanced Kafka and distributed systems technologies.
• The chance to contribute significantly to a robust and scalable data architecture within a forward-thinking organization.
• A collaborative and supportive onsite work environment in O’Fallon, MO, fostering professional growth and skill development.
• Exposure to a wide array of cutting-edge tools and platforms in the cloud and data streaming ecosystem.
• Opportunity to leverage your expertise to make a tangible impact on core business functionalities.