Technology/Domain Specialist II - Kafka at Ovations Technologies

Job Description:

• This is a 12 – month contract with our client in the banking sector
• Drive the availability, security, and scalability of our enterprise event-streaming ecosystem. As a Senior Systems/Platform Engineer, you will own, automate, and manage our Kafka infrastructure—ensuring peak performance, robust observability, and seamless cloud integration.

Key Responsibilities

• Kafka Platform Administration: Design, deploy, configure, and maintain production Kafka clusters (Confluent Platform and/or Confluent Cloud).
• Automation & IaC: Provision, manage, and automate cloud infrastructure and deployment pipelines using Terraform, Ansible, and Python/Bash scripting.
• Security & Compliance: Implement and enforce end-to-end Kafka security controls, including TLS/SSL encryption, SASL authentication, and ACLs.
• Observability & Performance: Build and optimize real-time monitoring, logging, and alerting systems using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Splunk, or Azure Monitor.
• Linux Systems Engineering: Troubleshoot complex low-level Linux systems, network, and platform-level issues to ensure high availability and reliability.

Minimum Requirements

• Systems Engineering: 6+ years of hands-on experience in Systems or Platform Engineering.
• Kafka Expertise: 4+ years of direct, hands-on administration of Apache Kafka (preferably Confluent Platform / Confluent Cloud).
• Cloud & DevOps: Strong background in Azure cloud infrastructure alongside CI/CD workflows and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform / Ansible).
• Scripting: Advanced proficiency in Python or Bash.
• Systems & Security: Deep Linux troubleshooting experience and solid expertise in Kafka security protocols (TLS/SSL, SASL, ACLs).