Information TechnologyFull-TimeEntry-level(0-1 yr)
Job Description
Role Overview
Absa Bank Limited is looking for a Specialist Platform Engineer to join the team. The successful candidate will help build and maintain Kafka-based streaming applications and support the Kafka platform across on-prem and Confluent Cloud environments. This role is a hybrid of development, platform responsibilities, and observability, providing a unique opportunity to work on distributed systems at scale.
Core Responsibilities
Development & Optimization: Develop, maintain, and optimize Kafka-based applications and event streaming pipelines using Java (Spring / Spring Boot), Python, or .NET.
Distributed Systems Management: Work with distributed systems concepts such as partitions, replication, fault-tolerance, scaling, and event-driven architectures.
Cluster Management: Contribute to provisioning, managing, and securing Kafka clusters both on-prem and in Confluent Cloud.
Security Implementation: Implement and maintain security and authorization mechanisms, including ACLs, Kerberos, SSL, and OAuth for Confluent Cloud.
Infrastructure Automation: Automate infrastructure deployment and configuration using Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, Docker, or Kubernetes.
Observability & Monitoring: Configure, monitor, and maintain observability for Kafka clusters, including metrics, alerts, and dashboards using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Confluent Control Center, and ElasticSearch.
Troubleshooting: Assist in troubleshooting production issues and perform root cause analysis.
Collaboration: Work closely with developers, DevOps/SRE teams, and other stakeholders to ensure reliable and performant streaming systems.
Best Practices: Contribute to best practices for connector configuration, high availability, disaster recovery, and performance tuning for applications built with Kafka Streams, ksqlDB, Apache Flink, and TableFlow.
Requirements and Qualifications
Education: BA/BSc/HND degree in a relevant field.
Programming Skills: Strong programming experience in Java (Spring / Spring Boot), Python, or .NET. Ability to write clean, maintainable, and performant code.
Architectural Knowledge: Solid understanding of distributed systems principles and event-driven architectures.
Technical Experience: Hands-on experience with Kafka in production or a strong ability to learn quickly. Familiarity with the Kafka ecosystem (Connect, Schema Registry, KSQL, MirrorMaker, etc.) is a plus.
Security Awareness: Familiarity with security best practices for Kafka, including ACLs, Kerberos, SSL, and OAuth.
Modern Infrastructure: Experience with infrastructure as code (IaC) and containerized environments.
Observability: Experience with monitoring and observability tools for distributed systems.
Desirable Skills (Bonus Points)
Experience with Confluent Cloud or other managed Kafka platforms.
Experience with AWS cloud services.
Experience building streaming pipelines across multiple systems and environments.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and automated deployments.
Behavioural & Soft Skills
Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
Ability to work independently and prioritize across multiple BAU and project tasks.
Product-minded approach, focusing on delivering value and scalable solutions.
Interested and qualified candidates should apply online by visiting the following link: Absa Bank Limited Application Portal. This will redirect you to the official Absa Workday careers page where you can complete your profile and submit your application.
