Sr. Kafka Engineer (DevOps, AWS, OpenShift)

Senior Kafka Engineer

We are seeking an experienced Senior Kafka Engineer with strong DevOps expertise to design, build, and support high-performance data streaming and deployment pipelines within our ecosystem. This role is critical to ensuring the reliability, scalability, and security of our real-time data platforms that power trading, payments, and risk management systems.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, deploy, and manage Kafka clusters supporting mission-critical financial applications, ensuring low latency, high availability, and regulatory compliance.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines across AWS and OpenShift to enable secure and automated deployments for microservices and data streaming applications.
• Develop infrastructure-as-code (IaC) solutions using Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation to maintain consistency and auditability in financial environments.
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and tune Kafka performance to ensure optimal throughput and reliability for real-time data flows (e.g., trade events, payment transactions, risk metrics).
• Implement robust security and compliance controls across Kafka, cloud, and containerized systems in alignment with financial regulations (e.g., SOC 2, PCI DSS).
• Automate build, deployment, and monitoring processes to minimize operational risk and improve system resilience.
• Collaborate with software engineers, data architects, and DevOps teams to design event-driven architectures supporting core banking, fraud detection, and analytics platforms.
• Lead incident response and root cause analysis for production issues impacting financial data pipelines.
• Stay informed on emerging technologies in data streaming, observability, and secure DevOps practices relevant to the financial sector.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, CIS, or related field
• 5 to 7 years of experience in software development or a related field
• 5 to 7 years of experience in database technologies
• 5 to 7 years of experience working on project(s) involving the implementation of solutions applying development life cycles (SDLC)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (Master's preferred).
• 7+ years of experience in DevOps, Cloud Infrastructure, or Data Engineering, with at least 4+ years specializing in Confluent Kafka in production.
• Proven experience deploying and managing Kafka in financial or regulated environments.
• Strong knowledge of AWS services (EC2, S3, IAM, Lambda, CodePipeline) and OpenShift/Kubernetes orchestration.
• Expertise in Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, Git, and scripting (Python, Bash, Groovy).
• Deep understanding of security, encryption, and compliance best practices for financial systems.
• Familiarity with monitoring tools such as Dynatrace or Splunk.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to work across infrastructure, application, and compliance teams.
• Financial services experience

General Description of Available Benefits for Eligible Employees of Truist Financial Corporation:

All regular teammates (not temporary or contingent workers) working 20 hours or more per week are eligible for benefits, though eligibility for specific benefits may be determined by the division of Truist offering the position. Truist offers medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, accidental death and dismemberment, tax-preferred savings accounts, and a 401k plan to teammates. Teammates also receive no less than 10 days of vacation (prorated based on date of hire and by full-time or part-time status) during their first year of employment, along with 10 sick days (also prorated), and paid holidays. For more details on Truist's generous benefit plans, please visit our Benefits site. Depending on the position and division, this job may also be eligible for Truist's defined benefit pension plan, restricted stock units, and/or a deferred compensation plan. As you advance through the hiring process, you will also learn more about the specific benefits available for any non-temporary position for which you apply, based on full-time or part-time status, position, and division of work.

Truist is an Equal Opportunity Employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, color, religion, citizenship or national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, veteran status, or other classification protected by law. Truist is a Drug Free Workplace.