Director of Engineering II, Kafka Connect

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them.

It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together.

One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform.

About the Role:

We are building Kafka Connect charter which is core for for scalable and reliable streaming data between Apache Kafka® and other data systems. It makes it simple to quickly define connectors that move large data sets in and out of Kafka. Kafka Connect can ingest entire databases or collect metrics from all your application servers into Kafka topics, making the data available for stream processing with low latency. An export connector can deliver data from Kafka topics into secondary indexes like Elasticsearch, or into batch systems–such as Hadoop for offline analysis.

We are looking for an engineering leader to lead the strategic vision, engineering, and operations of core engineering teams that build Confluent's industry-leading Kafka Connectors.. As a leader of this product line, you will be responsible for transformation role in the ongoing transformation of Kafka connect organization, driving innovation and outpacing competitors.

What You Will Do:

• Lead a highly productive, global team of software engineers and engineering leaders

• Drive the long-term direction and strategy of Confluent Kafka connectors, while partnering with internal stakeholders to drive the team’s mission forward

• Create competitive advantages for Kafka connectors by driving technical innovation

• Drive improvements in the Kafka connectors to make them more usable and powerful for customers, and make them easier to adopt and scale.

• Work closely with peer engineering leaders to prioritise improvements in all these areas - from a culture of continuous improvement to prioritising large and high-impact initiatives that will fundamentally change Kafka connectors

• Continue a strong growth trajectory by hiring top tier engineers, and establish quality standards, design principles, and operational maturity for the team

What You Will Bring:

• 5+ years of second-level engineering management experience leading productive, high-functioning teams.

• Maintain a high hiring bar while recruiting, motivating engineers, coaching/mentoring, and managing performance.

• Experience with running large stateful data systems in the cloud.

• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems design and development.

• A great track record of shipping features and hitting deadlines consistently.

• Sense of urgency, an aggressive mindset towards achieving results, and excellent prioritisation skills.

• Able to anticipate future technical needs for the product and craft plans to realize them, guided by our customers.

• Preferred experience running production services in public clouds

• Ability to influence the team, peers, and upper management using effective communication and collaborative techniques. Focus on building and maintaining a culture of collaboration within the team.

Ready to build what's next? Let’s get in motion.

Come As You Are

Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible.

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law.