[Hiring] Kafka Engineer Consultant @First Citizens Bank

Role Description

This is a remote role that may only be hired in the following location(s): AZ, GA, NC and TX.

This position provides technical guidance on complex strategic projects for the Kafka Platform team. Responsibilities include:

• Facilitating the design, development, and maintenance of data streaming pipelines and distributed messaging systems.
• Setting up Kafka clusters, configuring brokers, performance optimization, and ensuring high availability.
• Consulting on software evaluations, feasibility studies, and new technologies.
• Recommending processes and products that meet strategic goals while aligning with the Bank's long-term technology direction.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree and 8 years of experience in Software Application Development and Maintenance OR High School Diploma or GED and 12 years of experience in Software Application Development and Maintenance.
• Preferred Area of Study: Computer Science, Information Systems.
• Preferred Area of Experience: Information Technology, Kafka Development.
• Strong understanding of Kafka architecture – topics, partitions, brokers, producers, consumers, connectors.
• Knowledge of distributed systems, data streaming, and messaging systems.
• Experience with Confluent Kafka Connect, streams, and monitoring tools like Grafana, Prometheus, Confluent Control Center.
• Ability to be on call for support on a rotating basis (as needed).

Requirements

• Infrastructure Management – Design and deploy Kafka clusters on premise to ensure scalability and high availability. Cluster management through capacity planning, monitoring, and alerting.
• Pipeline Development – Develop and maintain real-time, stream data pipes using Kafka connect, schema registry, streams, ksqldb.
• Performance Optimization - Monitor, tune, and optimize brokers and topic configurations for throughput and low latency.
• Technical Expert - Maintains a strong knowledge of technology trends and impact on the Bank's infrastructure to provide relevant consultative guidance. Trains and mentors peers on new technologies.
• Consultation - Provides technical advice and direction to associates, management, and developmental project teams. Utilizes expertise to consult and develop software to solve complex technical problems.
• Business Strategy - Acts as a trusted advisor on strategies that align developmental projects with long-term business needs and technological direction. Assists management in implementing initiatives or strategies across the division.
• Troubleshooting – Diagnose and work on remediations for issues related to infrastructure, consumer lags, and message delivery.
• Security and Governance – Secure Kafka cluster via SSL and SASL, manage data contracts using schema registry.

Benefits

• Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and First Citizens Bank is committed to providing a competitive, thoughtfully designed, and quality benefits program to meet the needs of our associates.
• More information can be found at First Citizens Bank Benefits .