Kafka Platform Engineer – Columbus, OH

Softelite Technologies LLC | 2 Openings | Columbus, OH (On-site/Hybrid)

Job Title: Kafka Platform Engineer

Location: Columbus, OH (On-site/Hybrid)

Openings: 2

Experience: 7+ years

About the Role

Softelite Technologies is hiring two Kafka Platform Engineers for a large utility client in Columbus, OH. You will engineer and operate the enterprise Kafka platform, the company's strategic data movement backbone. The focus is platform stability, scalability, data safety and full operational enablement of producer and consumer integration teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Connector Management: Deploy and manage Kafka connectors (CDC, JDBC, IBM MQ, Redshift and more) across Confluent Kafka environments.

• Containerization & Orchestration: Containerize and deploy microservices and connectors on OpenShift using Docker, YAML and Kustomize.

• Automated Pipelines: Build CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions and Argo CD for repeatable, automated releases.

• Cluster Administration & Security: Handle topic creation, partitioning, replication, monitoring and security controls (TLS, ACLs, RBAC).

• Cloud & Real-Time Streaming: Use AWS and Azure managed services to deploy Confluent connectors for real-time streaming between on-prem systems and cloud/SaaS platforms.

• Monitoring & Observability: Track cluster and connector health with Confluent Control Center, Prometheus, Grafana, Dynatrace, Splunk and OpenShift-native tools.

• Custom Engineering: Build and maintain custom connectors and microservices in Python/Java following 12-Factor principles.

• SME Leadership: Act as Kafka SME, run code reviews, enforce engineering standards and coordinate deliverables with co-sourced/offshore teams.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related technical field.

• 7+ years of relevant experience (or equivalent education and experience).

• Proven hands-on Kafka engineering in production, with a deep understanding of distributed systems and messaging semantics.

• Hands-on Kubernetes experience (OpenShift, Docker).

• Experience with multi-region high availability (HA) on-premises deployments.

Preferred

• Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, MirrorMaker, Oracle GoldenGate / CDC tools.

• Enterprise integration patterns and tools (APIM, Camunda, webMethods, Oracle SOA).

• Confluent certifications: CCAAK, CCDAK and/or CCAC.

How to Apply

Send your updated resume to / with the subject "Kafka Platform Engineer – Columbus".