1

Senior Kafka Developer Jobs in Florida (NOW HIRING)

Senior Engineer

Tampa, FL · On-site +1

$120K - $180K/yr

As a Senior Engineer at our organization, you play a pivotal role in shaping the foundation of our ... Kafka, Kafka Streams, Pinot, Java, Scala, Kubernetes. In this role you'll be hands on working with ...

Showing results 21-40

Senior Kafka Developer information

What does a senior Kafka developer do?

A Senior Kafka Developer is responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining systems that use Apache Kafka for real-time data streaming and processing. They work on building scalable data pipelines, integrating Kafka with other systems, and ensuring high availability and performance. Additionally, they often provide technical leadership, mentor junior developers, and help define best practices for event-driven architectures within an organization.

What are some common challenges senior Kafka developers face when managing large-scale data streaming pipelines?

Senior Kafka Developers often encounter challenges such as ensuring data consistency across distributed systems, optimizing Kafka cluster performance, and monitoring for bottlenecks or data loss. Managing schema evolution and handling message serialization can also be complex, particularly in environments with multiple producers and consumers. Collaborating closely with DevOps, data engineering, and application development teams is essential to proactively address these issues and maintain high system reliability.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a senior Kafka developer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Senior Kafka Developer, you need deep expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, and strong programming skills in languages like Java or Scala, typically backed by a relevant degree and significant experience with Apache Kafka. Familiarity with Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, monitoring tools, and cloud platforms, as well as certifications like Confluent Certified Developer, are highly valuable. Exceptional problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills help you design scalable solutions and work effectively with cross-functional teams. These skills ensure the reliability, performance, and scalability of critical data infrastructure that powers real-time business operations.

What is the difference between Senior Kafka Developer vs Kafka Engineer?

AspectSenior Kafka DeveloperKafka Engineer
Primary FocusDesigning, developing, and optimizing Kafka-based applicationsImplementing, maintaining, and scaling Kafka infrastructure
Required SkillsKafka API, Java/Scala, data streaming conceptsKafka setup, cluster management, performance tuning
CertificationsKafka certifications, Java certificationsKafka certifications, DevOps certifications
Work EnvironmentDevelopment teams, data engineering projectsOperations, infrastructure teams, cloud environments

While both roles require Kafka knowledge and related certifications, Senior Kafka Developers focus on application development and data integration, whereas Kafka Engineers concentrate on infrastructure, deployment, and system performance. The roles often collaborate but serve different aspects of Kafka implementation within organizations.

What are popular job titles related to Senior Kafka Developer jobs in Florida?

For Senior Kafka Developer jobs in Florida, the most frequently searched job titles are:

What cities in Florida are hiring for Senior Kafka Developer jobs?

Cities in Florida with the most Senior Kafka Developer job openings:

Senior DevOps Engineer, Infrastructure & Reliability

Worth AI

Orlando, FL • Remote

$121K - $155K/yr

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Retirement, PTO

This job post has expired 1 day ago. Applications are no longer accepted.


Job description

Worth AI, a leader in the computer software industry, is looking for a Senior DevOps Engineer to join our Infrastructure team with a singular mission: to make our systems faster, more reliable, and more resilient while making life dramatically easier for engineers shipping software. 

This is a hands-on build role. You will spend most of your time writing Terraform, tuning Kubernetes workloads, automating things that are currently manual, and shipping infrastructure changes to production. You'll join a small platform team with an established roadmap and existing patterns, and a strong voice in how the work gets built.

  • Implement scalable Infrastructure-as-Code patterns using tools like Terraform to standardize cloud provisioning and reduce configuration drift.
  • Own and evolve our Kubernetes platform (EKS or self-managed), ensuring workloads are secure, scalable, and resilient by default.
  • Optimize CI/CD pipelines to improve deployment frequency, reduce lead time, and increase confidence in releases.
  • Design and enforce secure networking, IAM, and secrets management strategies across environments.
  • Improve observability by refining metrics, logs, and tracing using tools like DataDog, ensuring actionable insight into system health.
  • Optimize cloud cost efficiency through rightsizing, autoscaling strategies, and architectural improvements.
  • Implement disaster recovery planning, backup strategies, and multi-region resilience initiatives.
  • Refactor brittle or manually managed infrastructure into automated, testable, and reproducible systems.
  • Introduce new infrastructure tooling or architectural shifts and drive adoption through documentation, workshops, and hands-on support.
  • Partner with engineering teams to eliminate friction in CI/CD, deployments, and cloud environments.
  • Communicate technical trade-offs clearly across engineering and product stakeholders, balancing speed with safety.
Technology Stack
  • Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS (EKS, RDS, MSK, S3, Lambda, IAM, VPC)
    Containerization & Orchestration: Kubernetes, ArgoCD
    Infrastructure-as-Code: Terraform
    CI/CD: GitHub Actions
    Monitoring & Observability: DataDog
    Data & Messaging: PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis
    Languages (as needed): Bash, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript

Requirements

  • 8+ years in DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering.
  • Proven experience designing and operating production Kubernetes environments at scale.
  • Deep hands-on expertise with AWS infrastructure and cloud networking.
  • Strong experience building and maintaining Terraform modules across large cloud environments.
  • Demonstrated ownership of CI/CD systems and measurable improvement of DORA metrics.
  • Experience leading incident response processes and driving meaningful postmortem outcomes.
  • Strong understanding of distributed systems, event-driven architectures (Kafka), and database performance (PostgreSQL).
  • Proven ability to modernize legacy infrastructure and eliminate manual operational toil.
  • Track record of taking a scoped infrastructure project from an ambiguous starting point to production without needing daily direction.
  • Demonstrated ability to build trust across teams while raising the reliability bar.
Success Metrics
  • System Reliability: Maintain or exceed defined SLO/SLA targets with reduced incident frequency and duration.
  • Infrastructure Stability: Reduce production incidents caused by misconfiguration, manual processes, or infrastructure drift.
  • Operational Efficiency: Increase the percentage of infrastructure managed through code and automation.
  • Cost Optimization: Improve cloud cost efficiency without sacrificing reliability or performance.
Bonus Points (Nice to Have)
  • Experience coding applications
  • Experience operating high-throughput Kafka clusters (MSK or self-managed).
  • Strong background in database performance tuning (PostgreSQL, Redis).
  • Experience implementing autoscaling strategies for high-traffic systems.
  • Familiarity with service mesh technologies.
  • Experience building internal developer platforms (IDP).
  • Background in security best practices (zero-trust networking, policy-as-code).
  • Experience with multi-region or globally distributed systems.
  • Experience introducing platform-wide reliability frameworks (SLOs, error budgets, chaos testing).

All Remote Hires will be required to travel to Orlando, Florida at least twice per year for Town Halls and team collaboration, in addition to orientation in Orlando.

Benefits

  • Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
  • Retirement Plan (401k)
  • Life Insurance
  • Flexible Paid Time Off
  • 9 paid Holidays
  • Family Leave
  • Remote
  • Hybrid work (for Orlando Associates)
  • Free Food & Snacks (Orlando)
  • Wellness Resources