Kong with Kafka Architect

Job Summary

Value Technology is seeking an experienced Kong with Kafka Architect to design and implement scalable API management and event-driven architectures. The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on expertise with Kong Gateway, Apache Kafka, microservices, API security, and cloud platforms, with the ability to lead architecture and integration initiatives across enterprise environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and architect enterprise API Gateway and event-driven solutions using Kong and Kafka.
• Implement and manage Kong Gateway/Konnect, API services, routes, plugins, consumers, and policies.
• Design scalable Apache Kafka architectures, including topics, partitions, replication, producers, consumers, and Schema Registry.
• Integrate Kong APIs with Kafka-based microservices and event-driven platforms.
• Implement API security using OAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWT, API keys, mTLS, and RBAC.
• Develop strategies for Kafka performance, scalability, high availability, disaster recovery, and monitoring.
• Define API lifecycle management, governance, versioning, throttling, rate limiting, and traffic management.
• Work with REST, gRPC, microservices, Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms.
• Lead technical discussions, architecture reviews, POCs, and integration design.
• Troubleshoot complex API, Kafka, networking, and distributed-system issues.
• Establish best practices for CI/CD, observability, logging, monitoring, and automated deployments.

Required Skills

• 10+ years of experience in software/integration architecture.
• Strong expertise in Kong Gateway / Kong Konnect.
• Strong hands-on experience with Apache Kafka.
• Experience with Kubernetes/OpenShift and containerized environments.
• Strong knowledge of REST APIs, microservices, API lifecycle management, and event-driven architecture.
• Experience with OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, mTLS, API security, and access control.
• Kafka administration and development experience, including Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, Kafka Streams, and monitoring.
• Experience with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, or Azure DevOps.
• Excellent architecture, communication, and problem-solving skills.