Fullstack Software Engineer, Kafka

<p>We’re a global team of over 400+ people, working together to push the boundaries of open-source technology and multi-cloud solutions. Our vision is to help developers, builders, and creators bring their ideas to life with speed and simplicity, by providing a cloud data platform that makes open-source databases, search, streaming, and application infrastructure easily accessible to everyone. <br><br></p> <h2>The Role</h2> <p>We're looking for a Fullstack Software Engineer to join our Kafka Ecosystem team. You'll build features end-to-end: production Python in the platform that orchestrates managed Apache Kafka® services across clouds, contributions to <a href="https://github.com/aiven/karapace">Karapace</a> (our open-source Schema Registry and Kafka REST Proxy), and the React interfaces that put those features in front of users. Your main focus is Python; your reach extends from API design to the UI that ships with it.</p> <h2>What You'll Do</h2> <ul> <li>Extend and maintain Karapace: schema compatibility logic, REST Proxy features such as exposing message headers in produce and consume paths, OpenAPI schema coverage, and Confluent API compatibility</li> <li>Keep the connector ecosystem healthy: upgrades and releases of connectors like Debezium, JDBC, S3, BigQuery, and the OpenSearch® sink, security fixes, and changelogs</li> <li>Participate in design and code reviews, write well-tested code, and help shape technical direction</li> <li>Ship code reliably and often through CI/CD pipelines (Buildkite, GitHub Actions)</li> <li>Investigate and resolve production issues across the stack, from async Python application code down to Linux system behavior</li> <li>Contribute to technical planning within a small team where your input directly shapes the roadmap</li> <li>Own features end-to-end: design the API, build the async Python backend, and wire up the React/TypeScript views in our console</li> <li>Use AI coding tools as part of your daily workflow to speed up development</li> </ul> <h2>What We're Looking For</h2> <p><strong>Must have:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Strong Python skills:</strong> you're comfortable with async/await patterns, understand event loop semantics, and write production-grade code with type annotations and tests</li> <li><strong>Full-stack ability: </strong>you can contribute confidently to a React/TypeScript codebase and take a feature from backend to shipped UI</li> <li><strong>Distributed systems fundamentals: </strong>you reason clearly about consistency, replication, and failure modes</li> <li><strong>Familiarity with schema formats and evolution: </strong>Avro, JSON Schema, or Protobuf; you understand why schema compatibility matters</li> <li><strong>Fluent in AI-assisted development: </strong>you actively use AI coding tools (Claude Code or similar) in your daily workflow, including automating repetitive processes and building AI-assisted workflows</li> <li><strong>Fluent English,</strong> written and verbal</li> </ul> <p><strong>Nice to have:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Hands-on Apache Kafka® experience: consumer groups, offset management, and the group coordination protocol</li> <li>Linux fundamentals:<strong> </strong>comfortable with process management and debugging at the OS level</li> <li>Kafka Connect and connector development: custom connectors, transforms, or converters</li> <li>Prior open-source contributions, on any project</li> <li>Experience with public clouds (AWS, GCP, Azure) and cloud-managed Kafka (MSK, Confluent Cloud,