Kafka Platform Engineer

About this role: Wells Fargo is seeking a seeking a motivated Platform Engineer with foundational experience in Kafka and OpenShift (OCP) to support the design, deployment, and operation of enterprise event streaming platforms. The ideal candidate is eager to learn distributed systems, automation, and cloud-native technologies, and can collaborate effectively within engineering teams to deliver reliable and scalable Kafka solutions. In this role, you will: Assist in building, deploying, and maintaining Confluent Kafka platforms on OpenShift (OCP) under guidance from senior engineers Support the deployment and operation of Kafka components including brokers, KRaft controllers, Schema Registry, and Kafka Connect Participate in platform upgrade and improvement activities, including patching, configuration updates, and performance tuning Work with senior engineers to evaluate and integrate Kafka ecosystem tools and OCP-native capabilities Contribute to automation efforts, including CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure-as-Code templates for Kafka deployments Assist in implementing high availability and resiliency patterns, including replication, failover configurations, and cluster linking Follow established platform governance and standards, including naming conventions, topic management, and security best practices Participate in incident response and troubleshooting, helping identify root causes and document resolutions Learn and apply best practices for Kafka architecture and OCP deployment models, including networking, storage, and resource allocation Support operational processes and controls, ensuring alignment with enterprise policies and procedures Assist in monitoring and improving platform performance, capacity, and resource utilization Collaborate with application teams to support Kafka onboarding and basic integration use cases Work closely with internal teams (OCP, networking, security) and vendors to resolve issues and improve platform stability Required Qualifications: 2+ years of Technology Infrastructure Engineering and Solutions experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education Good understanding of Apache Kafka concepts, including topics, partitions, producers, and consumers Exposure to container platforms such as Kubernetes or OpenShift (OCP) Familiarity with Linux systems, networking basics, and distributed system fundamentals Basic knowledge of automation or scripting, such as Shell, Python, or similar tools Understanding of CI/CD concepts and DevOps practices Awareness of security fundamentals, including authentication, authorization, and encryption basics Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to troubleshoot issues with guidance Good communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work in a team environment Desired Qualifications: Exposure to Confluent Platform or Kafka operator-based deployments Familiarity with OpenShift/Kubernetes concepts such as pods, services, routes, and namespaces Basic understanding of monitoring and observability tools (metrics, logs, alerts) Exposure to event-driven architecture or streaming data pipelines. Experience with Git, CI/CD tools, or automation frameworks Interest in learning large-scale distributed systems and cloud-native architectures Job Expectations: Telecommuting is not an option for this position This position offers a hybrid work schedule Relocation assistance in not available for this position This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship Pay Range   Reflected is the base pay range offered for this position. Pay may vary depending on factors including but not limited to demonstrated examples of prior performance, skills, experience, or work location. Employees may also be eligible for incentive opportunities. $37.02 - $69.71 Benefits Wells Fargo provides eligible employees with a comprehensive set of benefits, many of which are listed