Staff / Senior Software Engineer, Streaming & Kafka

Business Area: Engineering Seniority Level: Mid-Senior level Job Description: At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises. Our Data Services Pillar is the heart of data innovation. We don’t just work with technology; we build it. Our mission is to empower data practitioners by creating seamless, enterprise-grade experiences for data engineering, warehousing, streaming, operational databases, and AI. At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises. Join our global Streaming Data Service where you will develop Cloudera’s cloud-native, modular and containerized Streaming data platform empowering customers to create and deploy data-heavy streaming applications at scale. Our Streams Messaging platform is based on Apache Kafka, Strimzi, Cruise Control and other open source technologies. At Cloudera we are designing, building and delivering an enterprise-grade data platform enabling our customers to create, deploy streaming applications at scale. As a Staff or Senior engineer, you will own and drive building features and services in the products owned by the team. You will collaborate and coordinate in a cross-functional team (Product, Backend and Frontend Engineering, UX) to ensure a smooth delivery of features and solutions. You ship production code, integrate components and deliver APIs required by customers that run data-heavy applications on the Cloudera streaming stack. In this role you will: Implement, test and deliver new features and improvements in the Cloudera Streaming product domainOwn features and provide technical leadership for other team members for aligned delivery.Build containers, operators and jobs that run on Kubernetes to integrate distributed data platform solutions into Cloudera’s containerized product familyContribute to a cross-functional software development team, covering all aspects of the development lifecycle to ensure high-quality, secure, and maintainable softwareMaster the delivery pipeline to ensure frequent and reliable delivery leveraging AI and modern engineering toolboxCollaborate in a cross-functional team with product management, support, UX, and documentation teams to deliver successful projects with agile mindset and strong ownershipProvide support to our field team and customers, facilitating product adoption, smooth implementation and troubleshooting of use cases.Act as a technical leader in the team, mentoring juniors and actively contributing into team process improvements We’re excited about you if you have: Deep experience with Apache Kafka.Project experience using containerization orchestration technologies (Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, Operators, CRDs, etc.)Deep expertise in Java with strong familiarity of the Java ecosystem and frameworks (Spring, Quarkus, Hibernate, Maven, Gradle, etc.)Good understanding of software design and architecture principles.Ability to produce clean, maintainable code and attitude to create high quality software.Experience with delivery pipeline tools, CI/CD solutions, automated testing and agentic developmentSelf-driven and highly motivated, with a strong sense of ownership and craftsmanship.Strong track record of complex software development projects, technical leadership and cross-team collaboration.BS/MS in Computer Science or a related field, and/or 6+ years of relevant work experience.Strong written and verbal English and communication skills. You may also have: Experience with Cloud technologies (AWS, Azure, GCP)Familiarity with other distributed data technologies like Apache Flink, Iceberg, Nifi or SparkExpertise in Scala, Python or GoExperience with React, HTML, and CSS to better collaborate in UI developmentAbility to design and implement delivery pipelinesFamiliarity with agentic frameworks and tools (Claude, Cursor, Copilot, etc.) Why this role matters: This is your opportunity to build cloud-native solutions that are deployable anywhere whether in massive clusters on any cloud provider or in private data centers. You’ll work with cutting-edge technologies like Trino, Spark, Airflow, and advanced AI inferencing systems to shape the future of analytics. Your code will directly influence how data engineers, analysts, and developers worldwide find value in their data. We believe in the power of open source. You’ll collaborate with project committers, contributing upstream to keep technologies like Apache Hive and Impala evolving. You’ll harden these engines for rock-solid security, optimize them for peak performance, and make them effortlessly run across all environments. Join us and help build the trusted, cloud-native platform that powers insights for the most data-intensive companies on the planet. What you can expect from us: Generous PTO Policy Support work life balance with Unplugged DaysFlexible WFH Policy Mental & Physical Wellness programs Phone and Internet Reimbursement program Access to Continued Career Development Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages Paid Volunteer TimeEmployee Resource Groups EEO/VEVRAA