Mid-Level Kafka Engineer

Position: Mid-Level Confluent Kafka Engineer Duration : Contract-to-Hire Location : Remote (Requires travel to Richmond, VA twice per quarter for 3–5 business days) Pay Rate:*Up to **$73/hr on W2** (GC/USC Only) Job Description We are seeking a **Mid-Level Confluent Kafka Engineer** with strong hands-on experience in **Apache Kafka, Confluent Cloud, Terraform, and Apache Flink**. This is an engineering-focused role (not an architect position) responsible for designing, implementing, automating, and supporting enterprise Kafka and streaming data platforms. The ideal candidate will have production experience managing Kafka infrastructure, building streaming solutions, automating Confluent resources using Terraform, and ensuring secure, scalable, and highly available messaging platforms. ### Required Skills & Experience * **Apache Kafka / Confluent Cloud (3–6 years)** * Production administration and engineering experience * Kafka clusters, topics, partitions, replication * Consumer groups and consumer lag monitoring * ACL management and performance optimization * **Confluent Schema Registry** * Schema governance * Compatibility modes * Subject naming strategies * Schema versioning and evolution * **Terraform / Infrastructure as Code** * Strong experience with Terraform * Confluent Terraform Provider * Managing Kafka infrastructure through code rather than manual administration * **Apache Flink / Confluent Managed Flink** * Flink SQL * Stateful stream processing * Windowing * Performance tuning * Checkpoints and Savepoints * **Kafka / Confluent Security** * RBAC * ACLs * API Keys * TLS * Authentication & Authorization * Audit logging * Network security * **CI/CD** * GitLab CI * GitHub Actions * Atlantis or similar tools * Terraform Plan/Apply pipelines * Drift detection * **Programming** * Python or Java * Kafka producers/consumers * Automation scripts * Operational tooling * **Monitoring & Observability** * Prometheus * Grafana * PagerDuty or equivalent * Kafka lag monitoring * Broker health monitoring * Flink metrics and alerting ### Preferred Qualifications * Experience supporting enterprise-scale streaming platforms * Strong troubleshooting and production support skills * Experience working in Agile environments * Excellent communication and collaboration skills ### Skills Matrix Please provide your years of experience in the following: * Apache Kafka: _____ Years * Confluent Cloud: _____ Years * Confluent Schema Registry: _____ Years * Terraform (Infrastructure as Code): _____ Years * Apache Flink: _____ Years * Kafka/Confluent Security: _____ Years * CI/CD (GitLab CI/GitHub Actions/Atlantis): _____ Years * Python or Java: _____ Years * Monitoring (Prometheus/Grafana/PagerDuty): _____ Years If you are interested, please send your updated resume along with the requested details at your earliest convenience. I look forward to speaking with you.