Open Source Software Engineer - Apache Kafka Committer

About NetApp

NetApp drives innovation in intelligent data infrastructure by providing unified storage, integrated data services, and comprehensive solutions to help organizations fully leverage their data across AI and multicloud environments. The company supports passionate teams working collaboratively to create impactful solutions that empower customers and promote growth.

Role Overview

This role is designed for an experienced Apache Kafka committer eager to engage in both high-level upstream development and practical enterprise deployment of Kafka services. The position offers the opportunity to influence the Apache Kafka project directly, focusing on areas critical to reliability, performance, operability, and customer satisfaction across large-scale managed open source data platforms.

Working within NetApp Instaclustr's open source engineering group, you will drive upstream enhancements while also impacting enterprise Kafka service delivery, collaborating with teams globally while based primarily in our Cork, Ireland office with a hybrid on-site requirement of three days per week and up to 10% international travel.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive comprehensive Apache Kafka upstream projects, including authoring KIPs, gaining design consensus, overseeing implementation, reviewing code, and managing releases in core Kafka systems such as broker internals, replication, metadata quorum, and streams processing.
• Provide authoritative code reviews on Kafka contributions to maintain high-quality standards and facilitate progression through the Apache Kafka review process.
• Engage in Apache Kafka release planning and execution tasks, including triaging release blockers, stabilizing tests, validating release candidates, preparing documentation, and managing post-release activities.
• Convert enterprise customer needs into actionable and credible upstream Kafka proposals and designs, offering expert advice to product and field teams regarding complex trade-offs.
• Influence Kafka community project directions related to architecture, protocol evolution, compatibility, release policies, contribution standards, and roadmap development.
• Mentor engineers to achieve committer status, enhancing overall code contribution quality through robust review and testing practices.
• Enhance upstream infrastructure spanning continuous integration, test coverage, contributor tooling, benchmarking, release automation, and compatibility validation to lessen maintenance efforts.

Required Qualifications

• At least 12 years of relevant professional software engineering experience.
• Confirmed Apache Kafka committer with verifiable contributions in patches, reviews, KIPs, and active community engagement in Kafka core or closely related areas such as Streams, Connect, clients, or release engineering.
• Advanced Java programming ability focused on performance-sensitive, concurrent distributed systems, with deep understanding of Kafka internals.
• Specialized expertise in one or more Kafka domains including broker storage, log replication, metadata management, consumer group coordination, compatibility protocols, Kafka Streams/Connect, observability, performance, or release engineering.
• Proven skill leading complex projects through Apache governance, from proposal initiation through design consensus and final delivery.
• Excellent written communication suited for global, asynchronous technical collaboration.
• Senior-level technical judgment capable of independently resolving blockers, managing novel challenges, proactively identifying risks, and delivering consistently aligned outcomes.

Preferred Attributes

• Membership in the Apache Kafka PMC or related project oversight body.
• Experience with recent Kafka features such as KRaft maturity, consumer rebalance improvements, exactly-once semantics, tiered storage, security enhancements, Streams APIs, or release management.
• Track record of aligning upstream technical leadership with enterprise user needs by translating operational challenges into accepted Kafka improvements.
• History mentoring contributors towards reviewer or committer roles within open governance projects.
• Familiarity with the Kafka ecosystem tools and adjacent projects like Strimzi and Kubernetes-based Kafka operation frameworks.

Team and Working Culture

This role reports to the Engineering Manager of the Open Source Engineering team. The team embraces transparency, accountability, deep technical ownership, and collaboration across global distributed members. We encourage individual autonomy coupled with cooperative synergy to advance code quality and enhance the Kafka contributor ecosystem.

Additional Information

• Paid position with full-time onsite employment in Cork, Ireland requiring presence in office three days weekly.
• Up to 10% international business travel may be necessary.
• NetApp strongly commits to Equal Employment Opportunity and prohibits discrimination on various lawful bases.
• Candidate screening may use AI tools to assist evaluation, supplementing human decision-making.