Senior Kafka Platform Engineer

Salary: £60,000 - 90,000 per year

Requirements:

• Design, implement and improve enterprise-scale Confluent Kafka platforms across cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments, including multi-cluster, multi-region and highly available deployments.
• Apply distributed systems knowledge, event-driven architecture practices and Confluent Platform technologies, including Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, Cluster Linking and ksqlDB.
• Develop secure, automated platform capabilities using Infrastructure as Code, Kubernetes and CI/CD tooling.
• Apply performance optimisation, capacity planning and Kafka security technologies, including RBAC, ACLs, OAuth, SSL/TLS, mTLS and secrets protection solutions.
• Contribute to disaster recovery, business continuity and platform resilience solutions for streaming environments.
• Work with streaming technologies such as Kafka Streams, Flink or Spark Streaming and apply real-time data processing approaches to business requirements.
• Collaborate across engineering, architecture, security and infrastructure teams, sharing knowledge and contributing to platform improvements.

Responsibilities:

• Design, develop and improve software that provides business, platform and technology capabilities for our customers and colleagues.
• Deliver high-quality software using industry-aligned programming languages, frameworks and tools, ensuring code is scalable, maintainable and performant.
• Work with product managers, designers and engineers to define requirements, develop solution strategies and align integrations with business objectives.
• Participate in code reviews and promote code quality and knowledge sharing.
• Keep informed about technology trends and contribute to our technology communities.
• Follow secure coding practices and implement effective unit testing to support secure, readable and reliable software.
• Develop and enhance our enterprise streaming platforms to enable secure, reliable, real-time data movement across Barclays.
• Contribute to scalable, resilient and secure platform solutions, improving streaming capabilities, reliability, security and automation.
• Advise and influence decision-making, contribute to policy development and take responsibility for operational effectiveness in collaboration with other functions and business divisions.
• Lead complex work that affects the wider business function, set objectives, coach employees and assess performance and reward outcomes where the role has leadership responsibilities.
• For individual-contributor assignments, lead collaborative work, guide team members, identify specialist input needed and determine approaches to achieve outcomes.
• Consult on complex issues and advise People Leaders on escalated issues.
• Identify ways to mitigate risk, develop policies and procedures that support control and governance, and take ownership of risk management and controls.
• Coordinate with related areas and collaborate with business-aligned support teams to stay informed about business activity and strategy.
• Analyse complex data from multiple internal and external sources to solve problems effectively.
• Communicate complex or sensitive information and influence stakeholders to achieve outcomes.
• Demonstrate our values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship, and our mindset to Empower, Challenge and Drive.

Technologies:

• CI/CD
• Cloud
• Flink
• Support
• Kafka
• Kubernetes
• OAuth
• RBAC
• Security
• Spark
• DevOps

More:

We are hiring a Senior Kafka Platform Engineer to work on enterprise streaming platforms and cloud-native technologies, distributed systems and event-driven architectures supporting teams across Barclays. The role is full time and based at either Knutsford, Radbroke Hall, or Barclays Campus, Pavilion Drive, Northampton. Colleagues are expected to demonstrate our LEAD behaviours where they have leadership responsibilities: Listen and be authentic, Energise and inspire, Align across the enterprise, and Develop others. Candidates may be assessed on risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen, strategic thinking, digital and technology, and role-specific technical skills.

last updated 39 week of 2026