Senior Kafka Administrator

Contract: Long-Term | Remote (U.S. Only, Eastern Time Zone Hours Required)

We are seeking a Senior Kafka Administrator with deep technical expertise in managing and supporting Kafka clusters in production environments. This mid-senior level role requires strong hands-on experience with Kafka architecture, distributed systems, security best practices, and high-availability configuration. The ideal candidate will ensure Kafka environments deliver consistent performance, reliability, scalability, and security while partnering with development teams to meet evolving business needs.

Key Responsibilities

• Configure, manage, and administer Apache Kafka clusters in production environments.
• Implement and maintain high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) strategies for Kafka ecosystems.
• Manage Kafka brokers, ZooKeeper, Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, and related components.
• Develop and maintain backup, restore, and failover procedures.
• Implement and enforce Kafka security standards, including SSL/TLS encryption, SASL, and Kerberos.
• Monitor Kafka performance using Prometheus, Grafana, or equivalent tools; identify and resolve bottlenecks proactively.
• Troubleshoot cluster issues to ensure stability, data integrity, and performance.
• Collaborate with development teams to align Kafka infrastructure with business and application requirements.
• Optimize Kafka architecture for maintainability, performance, and scalability.
• Document configurations, procedures, best practices, and operational workflows.
  
  
  

Required Qualifications (Must Have)

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
• 5 years of hands-on experience administering Apache Kafka in a production environment.
• Strong knowledge of Kafka architecture, including brokers, ZooKeeper, Kafka Connect, and Kafka Streams.
• Experience implementing HA and DR strategies for distributed environments.
• Proficiency with Kafka security: SSL/TLS encryption, SASL, Kerberos.
• Experience with monitoring/alerting platforms such as Prometheus or Grafana.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, networking fundamentals, and data flow management.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  
  
  

Preferred Competencies

• Experience with Apache Spark or related data engineering technologies.
• Strong documentation practices for architecture, operational tasks, and incident response.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams across infrastructure, development, and operations.
  
  
  

Position Details

• Experience Level: Mid-Senior
• Required Experience: 8–10 years total, with at least 5 years focused on Kafka administration
• Industry: Information Technology & Services
• Work Arrangement: Remote (U.S. based), must work Eastern Time Zone hours
• Relocation: Not offered
• Sponsorship: Not available
  
  
  

This is a remote position.