Kafka Engineer

Job description

Xenith Solutions is a small family focused business where we focus on taking care of our employees and customers equally.  We are focused on serving Federal / Civilian, Defense and Intelligence organizations with superior service.  If you want to be a part of a rapidly growing business with an exceptional culture, then you want to be a part of the Xenith Solutions family.

Xenith offers unmatched Benefits:

• 100% of Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits paid by employer FSA or HSA available Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) 401(k) matching (100% up to the first 4%) with NO vesting period Tuition / Certification / Training reimbursement Accident / Disability / Universal Life Insurance And much more… Xenith Solutions is currently looking for a Kafka Engineer with agile methodology experience to join our BEAGLE (Border Enforcement Applications for Government Leading-Edge Information Technology) Agile Solution Factory (ASF) Team supporting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) client located in Northern Virginia!


• Join this passionate team of industry-leading individuals supporting the best practices in Agile Software Development for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Responsibilities include:

•   Design, develop, and deploy high-performance Kafka producers, consumers, and stream processing applications (using Kafka Streams, ksqlDB, Flink, or Spark Streaming) in Java.


• Collaborate with architects and other engineering teams to define and evolve our event-driven architecture, ensuring best practices for Kafka topic design, partitioning, replication, and data retention.
• Implement and manage components of the Kafka ecosystem, including Kafka Connect (source and sink connectors), Schema Registry (Avro, Protobuf), and Kafka security features.
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Kafka clusters and Kafka-dependent applications for throughput, latency, reliability, and resource utilization.
• Build and maintain robust and resilient data pipelines for real-time ingestion, transformation, and distribution of data across various systems.
• Provide operational support for Kafka-based systems, including incident response, root cause analysis, and proactive maintenance to ensure high availability and reliability.
• Enforce data contract definitions and schema evolution strategies using Schema Registry to maintain data quality and compatibility across services.
• Implement comprehensive testing strategies for Kafka applications, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests, ensuring data integrity and system reliability.
• Create and maintain detailed technical documentation, architectural diagrams, and operational runbooks for Kafka-related components and processes.
• Act as a subject matter expert, sharing knowledge, mentoring junior engineers, and championing Kafka best practices across the organization.

You have:

•   Must be a U.S.

Citizen with the ability to pass CBP background investigation, criteria include but are not limited to:

•   3 year check for felony convictions  1 year check for illegal drug use  1 year check for misconduct such as theft or fraud   College degree (B.S.) in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Management Systems or a related discipline.  Equivalent professional experience will be considered in lieu of degree  Professional Experience: at least seven (7) years related technical experience, with software design, development and implementation in a Windows Environment    You’ll Bring These Qualifications:   Extensive hands-on experience designing, developing, and deploying applications using Apache Kafka (producers, consumers, topic management, consumer groups).


• Deep understanding of Kafka's internal architecture, guarantees (at-least-once, exactly-once), offset management, and delivery semantics.
• Experience with Kafka Streams API or other stream processing frameworks (e.g., Flink, Spark Streaming with Kafka).

Programming Proficiency:

• High-level proficiency in at least one modern backend programming language suitable for Kafka development (Java strongly preferred).


• Strong understanding of distributed systems principles, concurrency, fault tolerance, and resilience patterns.
• Experience with data serialization formats such as Avro, Protobuf, or JSON Schema, and their use with Kafka Schema Registry.
• Solid understanding of relational and/or NoSQL databases, and experience integrating them with Kafka.
• Excellent analytical, debugging, and problem-solving skills in complex distributed environments.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Knowledge of monitoring and observability tools for Kafka and streaming applications (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, Datadog).
• Working knowledge of Git and collaborative development workflows.

Understanding of all elements of the software development life cycle, including planning, development, requirements management, CM, quality assurance, and release management.    These Qualifications Would be Nice to Have:

•   Hands-on experience with Confluent Platform components (Control Center, ksqlDB, REST Proxy, Tiered Storage).


• Experience with Kafka Connect for building data integration pipelines (developing custom connectors is a plus).
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and managed Kafka services (e.g., AWS MSK, Confluent Cloud, Azure Event Hubs).
• Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes) for deploying Kafka-dependent applications.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and deployment of Kafka-based services.
• Familiarity with performance testing and benchmarking tools for Kafka and related applications.
• Xenith Solutions LLC is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business founded in 2019.
• We provide comprehensive, timely and relevant Solutions and Business Consulting support to our customers as a key partner.
• Our leadership brings over a century of combined experience in Defense and Civilian markets.
• Our employees possess experience in all aspects of solution development from requirements creation, development, test and evaluation, fielding, and sustainment.
• At the core of our offerings, we provide strategy and technology solutions, giving our customers valuable insights and thought leadership on the best application of information technology to drive business objectives.
• Xenith focuses on solving complex business challenges facing our customers.
• Our “Success Through Achievement” work ethic means our customer receive quality solutions through our commitment.
• We pride ourselves on tackling some of the most difficult operational requirements our customers have – ensuring an appropriate match between the mission requirements, financials, schedule, and security.
• EEO Xenith Solutions provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws.
• EEO IS THE LAW If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation as part of the employment selection process, please contact Xenith Solutions.
• E-Verify As a Federal Contractor, Xenith Solutions is required to participate in the E-Verify Program to confirm eligibility to work in the United States.
• Affirmative Action Plan As a federal government contractor and based on Executive Orders and applicable laws and regulations, Xenith Solutions develops and maintains annual written Affirmative Action Plans and endeavors to hire and advance qualified minorities, females, individuals with disabilities, and protected veterans.
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