Kafka Platform Engineer
American Electric Power8 days ago
Columbus, OH, USASenior
Base Salary
$99k - $129k/yr
Responsibilities
- Deploy and manage Kafka connectors, including CDC, JDBC, IBM MQ, and Redshift connectors, in Confluent Kafka environments.
- Containerize and deploy microservices and connectors on OpenShift using Docker, YAML, and Kustomize.
- Implement CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions and Argo CD for automated deployments.
- Administer Kafka topics, partitions, replication, monitoring, and cluster operations.
- Build and maintain custom connectors and Python or Java microservices for specialized data sources and sinks.
- Monitor Kafka clusters and connector health using Confluent Control Center, Prometheus, Grafana, Dynatrace, Splunk, and OpenShift-native monitoring.
- Support production deployments and troubleshoot complex data-flow issues across Kafka pipelines and OpenShift environments.
- Deploy Confluent connectors using AWS and Azure cloud services for on-premises, cloud, and SaaS data integrations.
- Apply Kafka security controls, multi-region high availability, 12-Factor principles, and microservices architecture to improve reliability and scalability.
- Collaborate with architects, business teams, platform teams, product owners, and co-sourced or offshore teams on integration requirements and delivery.
- Conduct code reviews and quality checks, automate operational tasks, and own integrations from design through production deployment.
- Serve as a subject matter expert for Kafka-based integrations and cluster administration.
Requirements
- A bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field is required.
- Seven years of relevant work experience is required.
- Strong hands-on Kafka experience in production environments.
- Understanding of distributed systems, messaging semantics, and fault tolerance.
- Experience deploying Kafka on Kubernetes platforms such as OpenShift and Docker-based environments.
- Experience with multi-region, high-availability on-premises deployments.
- Experience building producer and consumer applications using Kafka connectors.
- Experience building custom microservices in Python or Java.
- Experience with Kafka security, including TLS, ACLs, and RBAC.
- Ability to troubleshoot complex cross-team data-flow issues.
- Preferred experience with Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, MirrorMaker, and Oracle GoldenGate or similar CDC tools.
- Preferred familiarity with enterprise integration platforms and patterns, including APIM, Camunda, webMethods, and Oracle SOA.
- Listed Kafka certifications include Confluent Certified Administrator for Apache Kafka (CCAAK), Confluent Certified Developer for Apache Kafka (CCDAK), and Confluent Certified Cloud Operator (CCAC).
Benefits
- Compensation is listed as $98,993.00-$128,688.00.
- The role is classified as sedentary work, involving primarily sitting with occasional walking or standing and limited lifting or force exertion.
Tech Stack
Categories
Data EngineeringDevOps
About American Electric Power
American Electric Power is an investor-owned utility that generates, transmits, and distributes electricity for residential, commercial, and industrial customers. The NYSE-listed company, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, serves roughly 5.6 million customers in 11 states and operates an extensive transmission network and a diverse generation fleet, including renewables. Founded in 1906, its family of utilities includes AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power, Indiana Michigan Power, and the competitive supplier AEP Energy.