Principal Platform Architect Kubernetes Kafka

Responsibilities: Define and Own Platform Architecture Lead architecture design and decision-making for the core platform capabilities: container orchestration, streaming infrastructure, cloud architecture, CI/CD and Git Ops pipelines, and observability Develop and maintain target-state platform architectures with clear transition plans from current state Own reference architectures for Kubernetes-based workloads, Kafka streaming topologies, Flink stream processing, and AWS infrastructure patterns Establish platform architecture standards and guardrails that application teams can build against reliably Ensure non-functional requirements — availability, latency, throughput, recoverability — are addressed at the platform level, not delegated to individual application teams Drive Platform Modernization Architect and guide migration of workloads to cloud-native patterns on AWS, including compute, networking, storage, and security services Define Git Ops model — infrastructure-as-code practices, pipeline standards, environment promotion, and configuration management at scale Evaluate and recommend platform technologies and tooling; lead proof-of-concept efforts to validate architectural decisions before commitment Identify and reduce platform risk across the portfolio — single points of failure, unsupported dependencies, capacity constraints, and operational gaps Collaborate and Influence Partner with Application Architecture to ensure platform capabilities match application design requirements — particularly for high-throughput, low-latency clearing workloads Engage Engineering and operations teams to ensure platform designs are buildable, operable, and supportable — not just theoretically sound Facilitate architecture working sessions with technical leads and business stakeholders; communicate platform decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences

Qualifications: 10+ years of experience in infrastructure, platform, or systems architecture roles with demonstrated ownership of enterprise-scale platform decisions Deep, hands-on expertise with Kubernetes — cluster architecture, workload design, networking, security, and operational patterns at scale Hands-on experience architecting Apache Kafka deployments — topic design, partitioning strategy, consumer group patterns, schema management, and operational concerns Practical experience with Apache Flink or equivalent stream processing frameworks — job design, state management, and deployment on Kubernetes Strong AWS architecture experience — VPCs, EC2, EKS, MSK, S3, IAM, KMS, networking, and security services Demonstrated experience designing and implementing Git Ops pipelines — infrastructure-as-code, environment promotion, secrets management, and release automation using tools such as Flux, ArgoCD, Terraform, or Helm Experience with brownfield/legacy environments alongside cloud-native programs Kubernetes (EKS or self-managed), Kafka, Apache FlinkAWS foundational services: EC2, EKS, MSK, S3, VPC, IAM, KMS, Cloud Watch Git Ops tooling: ArgoCD, Flux, Terraform, HelmCI/CD pipelines: Jenkins, Git Hub Actions, or equivalent Observability: Open Telemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, or equivalent Unix/Linux environments; container and image management (Docker, Nex Artifactory)BS degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, or a similar technical field, or equivalent practical experience.10+ years of relevant work experience.

Preferred Skills: Experience in financial services, particularly regulated environments (SIFMU, clearinghouse, exchange, or bank)Familiarity with Regulation SCI, CPMI-IOSCO resilience requirements, or equivalent financial market infrastructure regulatory frameworks Experience with observability tooling at scale — Open Telemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, or equivalent Familiarity with high-performance and low-latency computing patterns relevant to risk and clearing workloads Experience with enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAFAWS Solutions Architect — Associate or Professional (preferred)