Software Engineer - Kafka

🔒 Confidential Employer
Posted 6 May 2026
LOCATION
London
TYPE
Full-time
LEVEL
Mid-Senior level
CATEGORY
Software Engineering
This employer holds a UK Home Office sponsor license — sponsorship for this specific role is at the employer’s discretion

SKILLS

Distributed Systems Apache Kafka Java Scala Fault Tolerance Performance Optimization Replication and Partitioning Open Source Contribution

FULL DESCRIPTION

Software Engineer - Kafka

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] is seeking an experienced software engineer to build and manage the core Apache Kafka infrastructure powering [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]'s critical services. The role involves designing and implementing core features, contributing to Kafka internals, and ensuring reliability and performance at scale.

  • Company: [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]
  • Location: London, England, United Kingdom
  • Work Type: On-site
  • Job Type: Full-time
  • Experience Level: Mid-Senior level

Description

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]'s Kafka organization develops messaging systems that are reliable, scalable, and performant. The role focuses on building and operating [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]-scale Kafka deployments while contributing directly to Kafka internals, including brokers, client libraries, replication, fault tolerance, partitioning, and system-level optimizations. You will design and implement core features, drive performance and reliability improvements, and take ownership of critical components across the Kafka ecosystem. The work spans both internal platform needs and upstream open-source contributions, with responsibility for high-quality code, rigorous engineering standards, and operational excellence in production environments.

Minimum Qualifications

  • Experience in software development, with strong experience in distributed systems or messaging platforms at scale.
  • Proven experience delivering complex, large-scale infrastructure or platform components.
  • Proficiency in Java, Scala, or other languages used in Kafka development.
  • Strong understanding of algorithms, data structures, fault tolerance, and performance for large-scale messaging systems.
  • Hands-on experience designing, building, and operating systems using Apache Kafka

Preferred Qualifications

  • Solid understanding of Kafka broker internals, including replication, partitioning, and client interaction.
  • Familiarity with distributed systems concepts such as consensus, consistency models, and fault tolerance.
  • Experience with multi-datacenter deployments, load balancing, quota management, or tenant isolation.
  • Experience with testing methodologies such as fault injection, performance benchmarking, or property-based testing.
  • Proven ability to maintain strong operational standards, including monitoring, incident response, and remediation.
  • Experience contributing to or working with open-source projects, ideally Apache Kafka or related ecosystems.
  • Hands-on experience with distributed system design and debugging at scale.
  • Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Additional Information

At [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal], we're not all the same. And that's our greatest strength. We draw on the differences in who we are, what we've experienced and how we think. Because to create products that serve everyone, we believe in including everyone. Therefore, we are committed to treating all applicants fairly and equally. As a registered Disability Confident employer, we will work with applicants to make any reasonable accommodations. [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] will consider for employment all qualified applicants with criminal backgrounds in a manner consistent with applicable law.

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