<p>Kforce has a client that is seeking a Senior Kafka Administrator to work in Greenwood Village, CO or Saint Louis, MO for an onsite, contract role.</p> <p>Overview: We are seeking two Senior Kafka Platform Engineers on behalf of our client for a high-impact, onsite contract engagement. This role will support a large-scale, enterprise Kafka environment that is undergoing modernization, performance optimization, and infrastructure upgrades. This is a hands-on position ideal for someone who has owned and operated Kafka in a complex enterprise setting and is comfortable working across Linux systems, bare metal infrastructure, and cloud-managed Kafka services.</p> <p>Key Responsibilities:</p> <ul> <li>Serve as a senior technical lead for Kafka platform operations and stability </li><li>Administer, maintain, and optimize enterprise Kafka clusters </li><li>Perform performance tuning, capacity planning, and scaling initiatives </li><li>Support infrastructure modernization efforts, including potential cloud migrations </li><li>Maintain and support Kafka environments running on bare metal infrastructure </li><li>Contribute to automation efforts using configuration management tools </li><li>Perform Linux system administration tasks (patching, upgrades, troubleshooting) </li><li>Collaborate with engineering and infrastructure teams to ensure high availability and reliability* 5+ years of hands-on Kafka administration in an enterprise environment </li><li>Proven experience owning and supporting production Kafka clusters </li><li>Strong Linux systems administration experience </li><li>Experience with performance tuning and scaling Kafka at high data volumes </li><li>Experience supporting Kafka on bare metal infrastructure </li><li>Familiarity with Amazon MSK or other managed Kafka services </li><li>Ability to work independently in a senior-level capacity </li></ul> <p>Preferred Qualifications:</p> <ul> <li>Experience with Amazon MSK migrations </li><li>Experience with Ansible or other automation tools </li><li>Python scripting experience </li><li>Exposure to infrastructure modernization initiatives </li></ul> <p>Ideal Candidate Profile:</p> <ul> <li>Has been -the Kafka expert- on their team </li><li>Comfortable operating in environments without heavy operational support </li><li>Proactive, self-sufficient, and technically deep </li><li>Direct communicator who collaborates effectively onsite </li></ul>