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Senior Kafka Developer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Johnston, RI · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Westwood, MA · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Phoenix, AZ · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Johnston, RI · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Plano, TX · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Plano, TX · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Phoenix, AZ · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Westwood, MA · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Iselin, NJ · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Phoenix, AZ · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This full-time role is ...

Citizens

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Iselin, NJ · Hybrid

$125K - $155K/yr

Description Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This ...

Citizens Bank

Kafka Infrastructure Engineer

Phoenix, AZ · On-site

$125K - $155K/yr

Senior Kafka Engineer, Enterprise Data Engineering We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our Enterprise Data Engineering team. This full-time role is ...

Pull Skil

KAFKA Architect

Smithfield, RI · On-site

Job Title : Sr. KAFKA Architect Location: Smithfield, RI ( Must be onsite and no remote) Duration ... developer. • Kafka Security (SSL SASL Kerberos ACL) • Optimization of Kafka cluster and ...

Pull Skil

KAFKA Architect

Smithfield, RI

Job Title : Sr. KAFKA Architect Location: Smithfield, RI ( Must be onsite and no remote) Duration ... developer. Kafka Security (SSL SASL Kerberos ACL) Optimization of Kafka cluster and workloads ...

Sarian, Inc.

Kafka Tester

Strongsville, OH · On-site

Role: Sr. Kafka Tester Location: Strongsville, OH/ Pittsburgh. PA/Dallas, TX/ Chicago, IL/Phoenix ... Issue Resolution: Collaborating with developers to identify, analyze, and resolve data issues ...

Sarian, Inc.

Kafka Tester

Dallas, PA · On-site

Role: Sr. Kafka Tester Location: Strongsville, OH, Pittsburgh. PA, Dallas, TX - Fulltime Position ... Issue Resolution: Collaborating with developers to identify, analyze, and resolve data issues ...

Wave Era Inc.

Cassandra Developer

Jersey City, NJ

Senior Cassandra and Kafka Developer We are looking for a senior Cassandra developer who must-have supported Cassandra cluster in production, must-have experience in tuning (at least know what tuning ...

Wave Era Inc.

Cassandra Developer

Jersey City, NJ · On-site

Company Description Senior Cassandra and Kafka Developer We are looking for a senior Cassandra developer who must-have supported Cassandra cluster in production, must-have experience in tuning (at ...

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Senior Kafka Developer information

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How much do senior kafka developer jobs pay per hour?

As of Jun 1, 2026, the average hourly pay for senior kafka developer in the United States is $61.73, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $52.40 and $69.23 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

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 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 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 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.

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What cities are hiring for Senior Kafka Developer jobs? Cities with the most Senior Kafka Developer job openings:
What are the most commonly searched types of Kafka Developer jobs? The most popular types of Kafka Developer jobs are:
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What job categories do people searching Senior Kafka Developer jobs look for? The top searched job categories for Senior Kafka Developer jobs are:
Senior Kafka Developer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Senior Kafka Developer job openings in the United States as of May 2026, with employment types broken down into 100% Full Time. Highlights an 80% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 15% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $128,400 per year, or $61.7 per hour.

Snr Kafka Platform Engineer

Benton Partners

New York, NY

Full-time

Posted 7 days ago

Job description

Senior Kafka Platform Engineer (Automation & Kubernetes)
ChicagoNew York
Posted 54 Days Ago
REQ7777
We're seeking a seasoned Kafka engineer to design, operate, and scale our event streaming platform. You'll own the Kafka core (brokers, storage, security, observability) and the automation that powers it-building infrastructure-as-code, operators/Helm charts, and CI/CD to enable safe, self-service provisioning. You'll run Kafka on Kubernetes and/or cloud-managed offerings, ensure reliability and performance, and partner with application teams on best practices.
What you'll do
  • Architect, deploy, and operate production-grade Kafka clusters (self-managed and/or Confluent/MSK), including upgrades, capacity planning, multi-AZ/region DR, and performance tuning.
  • Operate Kafka on Kubernetes using Operators, Helm, and GitOps, and build IaC-driven automation with guardrails for repeatable, compliant, zero-downtime provisioning and deployments.
  • Implement and manage Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, and MirrorMaker 2/Cluster Linking; standardize connectors (e.g., Debezium) and build self-service patterns.
  • Drive reliability: define SLOs/error budgets, on-call rotations, incident response, postmortems, runbooks, and automated remediation.
  • Implement observability: metrics, logs, traces, lag monitoring, and capacity dashboards (e.g., Prometheus/Grafana, Burrow, Cruise Control, OpenTelemetry).
  • Secure the platform: TLS/mTLS, SASL (OAuth/SCRAM), RBAC/ACLs, secrets management, network policies, audit, and compliance automation.
  • Guide event-streaming best practices: topic design, partitioning, compaction/retention, idempotency, ordering, schema evolution/compatibility, DLQs, EOS semantics.
  • Partner with app, data, and SRE teams; provide enablement, documentation, and internal tooling for a great developer experience.
  • Lead/mentor engineers and contribute to roadmap, standards, and platform strategy.

Required qualifications
  • Excellent communication and partnership skills with platform and application teams.
  • Deep hands-on experience operating Kafka in production at scale (brokers, controllers, partitions, ISR, tiered storage/retention, rebalancing, replication, recovery).
  • Strong Kubernetes expertise running stateful systems.
  • Automation first: Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), Helm, Operators, GitOps (Argo CD/Flux), and CI/CD (e.g., GitHub Actions/Jenkins) for platform lifecycle.
  • Proficiency with one or more languages for tooling/automation: Python, Go, or Java; plus Bash and solid Linux fundamentals (networking, filesystems, JVM tuning basics).
  • Observability and reliability engineering for Kafka: Prometheus/Grafana, logging, alerting, lag monitoring, capacity/throughput modeling, performance tuning.
  • Security for data in motion: TLS/mTLS, SASL/OAuth, ACL/RBAC, secrets management (e.g., Vault), and audit/compliance practices.
  • Experience with Kafka ecosystem components: Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, MirrorMaker 2/Cluster Linking; familiarity with Cruise Control.
  • Cloud experience (AWS/Azure/GCP) with networking, IAM, and one or more managed offerings (e.g., Confluent Cloud or AWS MSK).
  • Proven track record designing runbooks, leading incidents/postmortems, and driving platform roadmaps.

Nice to have
  • Data processing frameworks (Kafka Streams, Flink, Spark Structured Streaming) and EOS semantics.
  • Experience with Strimzi or Confluent for Kubernetes in production.
  • Knowledge of CDC patterns and tools (e.g., Debezium) and database connectors at scale.
  • Multi-region architectures, cluster linking strategies, and disaster recovery drills.

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