Confluent Platform Architect

Role Summary

The Confluent Platform Architect is responsible for defining, governing, and supporting the implementation of enterprise-scale event streaming solutions using the Confluent Platform. The role combines architectural leadership with hands-on technical involvement to ensure Kafka-based solutions are scalable, secure, resilient, and aligned with enterprise architecture and security standards.

The architect works closely with stakeholders, platform teams, delivery partners, and engineering teams to drive successful adoption and implementation of event-driven architectures across the organization. 

Experience Required

• 14+ years of overall IT experience with at least 7+ years of hands-on experience in Apache Kafka / Confluent Platform
• Proven experience in enterprise-scale event streaming architecture, implementation, and governance
• Experience working in large, complex enterprise environments with multiple integration and data platforms

Key Responsibilities

• Define target-state architecture for Confluent and Kafka-based event streaming solutions
• Act as the architectural authority for Confluent implementations across programs and delivery teams
• Provide hands-on support for Kafka platform setup, configuration, troubleshooting, and performance tuning
• Establish and govern:
• Topic design and naming standards
• Data contracts and schemas (Avro / Schema Registry)
• Event lifecycle and retention policies
• Guide implementation of producers, consumers, Kafka Connect, and Schema Registry integrations
• Ensure alignment with enterprise integration, security, and cloud architecture standards
• Provide guidance on high availability, disaster recovery, scalability, and resiliency
• Review and approve solution designs, architecture artefacts, and implementation approaches
• Support architecture reviews, technical workshops, and governance forums
• Collaborate with application, cloud, DevOps, and integration teams for consistent platform adoption
• Oversee partner and vendor implementations to ensure adherence to standards and best practices 

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong architectural and hands-on knowledge of:
• Confluent Platform / Apache Kafka
• Producers, consumers, partitions, replication, and offsets
• Kafka cluster configuration and management
• Experience with:
• Schema Registry
• Kafka Connect
• REST Proxy and ksqlDB (where applicable)
• Strong understanding of event-driven architecture and streaming patterns
• Experience with Kafka deployments in cloud and/or Kubernetes environments
• Hands-on troubleshooting and performance tuning experience
• Strong stakeholder engagement, governance, and documentation skills
• Experience working with delivery partners and systems integrators

Preferred Experience

• Multi-region or multi-cluster Kafka deployments
• Integration with enterprise data and analytics platforms
• Experience in regulated enterprise environments
• Exposure to CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, and platform automation
• Confluent or Kafka-related certifications