Kafka Administrator - Level 3 Support

Job description / Role

Expert Troubleshooting:
• Investigate and resolve the most complex and critical issues affecting Kafka clusters and associated technologies.
• Collaborate with first and second-level support teams to provide expert guidance in issue resolution.

Performance Optimization and Advanced Tuning:
• Lead efforts in optimizing Kafka cluster performance, including advanced tuning of configurations and resource allocations.
• Propose and implement innovative solutions to enhance overall system efficiency.

Security Expertise:
• Act as a subject matter expert in Kafka security, ensuring the highest standards of access controls, encryption, and authentication.
• Conduct regular security audits and implement measures to mitigate potential risks.

Capacity Planning and Scalability:
• Drive capacity planning initiatives for Kafka clusters, ensuring scalability to meet growing demands.
• Evaluate and implement cutting-edge technologies to enhance cluster scalability and resilience.

Automation and Tooling:
• Develop advanced automation scripts and tools to streamline administrative tasks and improve operational efficiency.
• Implement and maintain CI/CD practices (Gitlab) for Kafka infrastructure.

Innovation and Technology Adoption:
• Stay at the forefront of Kafka and related technologies, evaluating new features and improvements.
• Lead the adoption of emerging technologies to enhance Kafka cluster performance and reliability.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:
• Collaborate with development teams, infrastructure teams, and other stakeholders to address complex, cross-functional challenges.
• Provide technical leadership in designing and implementing Kafka-related solutions.

Incident Analysis and Post-mortems:
• Conduct thorough analysis of major incidents and outages, providing detailed post-mortem reports.
• Propose and implement preventive measures to avoid recurring issues.

Documentation and Knowledge Sharing:
• Maintain comprehensive documentation on advanced Kafka configurations, troubleshooting procedures, and best practices.
• Provide training sessions and knowledge transfer to other support levels and teams.

• Extensive experience in Kafka administration, with a deep understanding of its architecture, internals, and ecosystem.
• Proficient in Linux systems administration and scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash).
• Strong expertise in performance tuning, capacity planning, and scalability for Kafka clusters.
• Strong expertise in performance tuning, capacity planning, and scalability for OpenShift clusters.
• In-depth knowledge of Kafka security best practices and implementation.
• Experience with advanced automation, CI/CD, and tooling for Kafka administration.
• Proven ability to innovate, solve complex problems, and lead technical initiatives.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Previous experience in a leadership or mentorship role is a plus.

About the Company

Saudi Networkers Services, incorporated in 2001 with an aim to provide the world class business and consulting services through a combination of market insight, technical excellence and unrivalled agile methodology.

Our success stems from building strong relationships and trusted partners, which enabled us delivering exceptional services to public sector, as well as some world's leading organizations, in Telecommunication, Information Technology, Cyber Security, Banking, Energy, Utilities and various other industry arenas.

We collaborate closely, ideate that how the work gets done, while working alongside businesses to collaborate on growth and applying breakthrough innovations, that drive exponential impact, managed by teams specialized in their assigned industry sectors.