Job highlights

- Bachelor's in Computer Science with hands-on Kafka management in GCP and Kubernetes, expertise in Kafka security and ecosystem components, experience with AI-driven automation

- Manage and support Kafka platforms, design DR and business continuity solutions, build automation with Terraform and Ansible, monitor and troubleshoot platform health, coordinate cross-team issue resolution, participate in 24x7 on-call rotation

Responsibilities

- Manage and support Kafka platforms and ecosystem components across GCP and on-premises Kubernetes environments.

- Plan platform capacity, scalability, and growth in partnership with application teams.

- Design, implement, and maintain Kafka Disaster Recovery (DR) and business continuity solutions.

- Build and enhance automation using Terraform, Ansible, Git, Jenkins, and related DevOps tools.

- Design, configure, and support Kafka Connect source and sink integrations following best practices.

- Research and implement new messaging platform capabilities, including AI-driven operational improvements.

- Analyze upstream and downstream data dependencies to ensure platform reliability and performance.

- Drive platform architecture, operational excellence, and continuous service improvements.

- Translate complex technical and operational data into actionable recommendations for stakeholders.

- Participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation to support production systems and ensure SLA compliance.

- Monitor platform health, troubleshoot incidents, perform root cause analysis (RCA), and implement corrective actions.

- Coordinate with application, infrastructure, security, and vendor teams to resolve production issues.

- Support platform upgrades, patching, maintenance activities, DR testing,



and after-hours operational requirements.

- Maintain operational documentation, runbooks, monitoring, and alerting standards.

- Demonstrate robust analytical skills, a product mindset, and the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or similar field

- Hands-on experience managing Kafka clusters in GCP and on-premises Kubernetes environments.

- Experience leveraging AI technologies to drive automation and operational efficiency.

- Strong expertise in designing, deploying, and administering Kafka platforms, including sizing, performance tuning, replication, backup, disaster recovery, and access management.

- Experience with Kafka, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, Docker, Jenkins, and CI/CD automation.

- Proficiency in building and automating Kafka infrastructure and data pipelines using Infrastructure-as-Code and scripting tools.

- Strong knowledge of Kafka security, authentication, authorization, Kerberos, SSL/TLS, and access controls.

- Experience with Kafka ecosystem components such as Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, ZooKeeper, KSQL, REST Proxy, Control Center, and MirrorMaker/Replicator.

- Experience designing and supporting highly available, scalable, and resilient Kafka platforms.

- Knowledge of Kafka APIs, producer/consumer architectures, and enterprise messaging patterns.

- Experience implementing monitoring and observability solutions using Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or similar tools.

- Proficiency in Python or other scripting/programming languages.

- Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work effectively in complex and ambiguous environments.

📌 Software Engineering Lead - Kafka, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, gcp (Hyderabad)
🏢 Optum
📍 Hyderabad