Calix · 1 week ago
Staff Software Engineer - Cloud Platform (Kafka)
United States
Full-time
Remote
Lead/Staff
$156K/yr - $266K/yr
10+ years expCalix is a leading company enabling Communication Service Providers to transform their businesses through a cloud-first, AI-powered platform. They are seeking a skilled Staff Cloud Platform Engineer with expertise in Kafka to design, deploy, and optimize their event streaming infrastructure on Google Cloud Platform.
Big DataInformation TechnologyTelecom & CommunicationsSoftwareAnalyticsInfrastructureInternetTelecommunicationsVoIP
Responsibilities
Design, provision, and manage Apache Kafka clusters (self-managed on GCP/AWS or via Confluent Platform / MSK)
Configure and tune brokers, ZooKeeper/KRaft, topics, partitions, replication factors, and retention policies for high throughput and low latency
Perform cluster upgrades, rolling restarts, and broker replacements with zero downtime
Implement and manage Kafka Connect pipelines for data ingestion and egress across heterogeneous systems
Administer Kafka Streams and ksqlDB deployments for real-time stream processing workloads
Maintain Schema Registry and enforce schema governance standards across teams
Define and track SLIs/SLOs for consumer lag, throughput, end-to-end latency, and broker health
Design and implement cloud infrastructure using IaC – Terraform
Build automated deployment pipelines for Kafka configuration changes using GitOps workflows (ArgoCD, Flux)
Create self-service tooling and runbooks to reduce toil for development teams
Automate topic provisioning, ACL management, and schema registration via APIs and CLI tooling
Integrate tools like GitLab CI/CD, or Cloud Build for automated testing and deployment
Ensure seamless integration of data pipelines with other GCP services like Big Query, Cloud Storage
Monitor and Optimize performance, reliability, and cost of Kafka and streaming pipelines
Implement security best practices for GCP resources, including IAM policies, encryption, and network security
Ensure Observability is an integral part of the infrastructure platforms and provides adequate visibility about their health, utilization, and cost
Collaborate extensively with cross functional teams to understand their requirements; educate them through documentation/trainings and improve the adoption of the platforms/tools
Qualification
Required
10+ years of overall experience in DevOps cloud engineering, or data engineering
5+ years of experience in Kafka at production scale
Deep expertise in Kafka internals: replication protocol, log compaction, consumer group coordination, partition leadership, and KRaft mode
Proficiency with container orchestration (Kubernetes / Helm) and deploying Kafka via Strimzi, Confluent Operator, or equivalent
Strong understanding of networking (VPC, peering, private endpoints, DNS, load balancing) in cloud environments
Hands-on experience with Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, and at least one stream processing framework (Kafka Streams, Flink, Spark Structured Streaming)
Proficiency in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services, including Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Kafka, Dataproc, Big Query, and Cloud Storage
Expertise in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or Cloud Deployment Manager
Familiarity with data orchestration tools like Apache Airflow or Cloud Composer
Experience with CI/CD tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, or Cloud Build
Knowledge of containerization and orchestration tools like Docker and Kubernetes
Strong scripting skills for automation (e.g., Bash, Python)
Experience with monitoring tools like Cloud Monitoring, Prometheus, and Grafana
Familiarity with logging tools like Cloud Logging or ELK Stack
Strong problem-solving and analytical skills
Excellent communication and collaboration abilities
Ability to work in a fast-paced, agile environment
Benefits
As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for a bonus.
For information on our benefits click [here](https://www.calix.com/careers.html#benefits).
Company
Calix
Calix provides the cloud, software, systems and services for service providers to simplify business, excite subscribers and grow value
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Calix has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
79%
Represents job field similar to this job
Engineering and Development
Management and Executive
Product Management
Customer Service and Support
Legal and Compliance
Sales
Trends of Total Sponsorships
*2026 (15)
2025 (36)
2024 (22)
2023 (24)
2022 (31)
2021 (19)
2020 (7)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$150MKey Investors
Foundation Capital,Silicon Valley Bank,Sprout Group
2010-03-24IPO
2009-08-31Series Unknown· $50M
2009-08-31Debt Financing· $50M
Leadership Team
Michael Weening
President and CEO, Member of the Board
Cory Sindelar
Chief Financial Officer
Recent News
Company data provided by crunchbase