DevOps Engineer

Job Title: DevOps Developer

Location: Brussels, Belgium

Languages: English

Duration : 6 months with possible extension

JOB DESCRIPTION

• Client is seeking a DevOps Engineer with expertise in Data Platform Engineering, focusing on the Kafka ecosystem and Kubernetes/Open Shift. This position is based in Belgium, within the Observability and Analytics Cluster under the Tooling Services organization. The candidate will play a pivotal role in scaling and enhancing the Observability Platform, which integrates Kafka ecosystem components and containerized infrastructure.
• The role involves collaborating with global teams, driving operational excellence, and improving the resiliency, reliability, stability, and security of the platform. The successful candidate will demonstrate a strong background in stream processing and container orchestration.

Key Responsibilities:

• Mentor and guide less senior engineers by sharing knowledge and promoting best practices to support team success.
• Manage and enhance Kafka ecosystem components, including KStream, KConnect, and KSQLDB, ensuring robust stream processing in production environments.
• Implement and optimize data pipelines to handle large-scale telemetry and observability data ingestion using Kafka and the ELK stack.
• Oversee deployments in Kubernetes and Open Shift, ensuring scalability, high availability, and performance for Kafka and other platform workloads.
• Apply DevOps and SRE principles to improve platform reliability, focusing on automation, self-service capabilities, and infrastructure optimization.
• Automate deployment and infrastructure management through tools like Ansible for IaC and CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins and Argo CD.
• Troubleshoot complex issues in distributed systems, particularly in environments involving Kafka, Kubernetes, and large-scale data platforms.

Required Skills and Experience:

• Extensive experience with the Kafka ecosystem, including Kafka Streams, KSQLDB, and Kafka Connect.
• Strong expertise in managing and deploying workloads on Kubernetes and Open Shift, including experience with Docker or Podman containerization.
• Proven ability to operate and maintain platforms built on the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana).
• Hands-on experience with DevOps tools: Jenkins, Argo CD, Git, and Ansible for infrastructure automation.
• Proficiency in either Java or Python for platform development and automation tasks.
• Experience managing on-premises infrastructure (compute, storage, and networking).
• Ability to design, build, and optimize ETL pipelines and data processing workflows for telemetry and log data.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills, particularly in distributed, high-availability systems.
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies and the ability to collaborate effectively with remote and cross-functional teams.

Nice to Have:

• Knowledge of the Open Telemetry standard for metrics, traces, and logs.
• Understanding of architecture models such as UML or C4 model.
• Foundational knowledge of Machine Learning (ML) concepts.
• Certification or hands-on experience as an ELK data engineer.

Mandatory Skills:

• Ansible & IaC
• CI/CD
• ELK Stack
• Fast Learner
• Independent/Autonomous
• Java Development
• Kafka ecosystem
• Observability & Monitoring
• Open Shift/Kubernetes