Enterprise Architect - Event-Driven Architecture & Kafka

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The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Job Description

We are looking for an experienced Enterprise Architect with deep expertise in event-driven architecture (EDA) and ApacheKafkato join our team. In this role, you will be responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing our enterprise event-driven systems to enable real-time data processing and integration across the organization. You will lead the creation of scalable, fault-tolerant, and high-throughput data pipelines and advise on best practices for implementingKafkaand related technologies.

Key Responsibilities:

Architecture Design and Strategy

• Develop and implement an enterprise-wide event-driven architecture strategy, utilizing ApacheKafkato support real-time data streaming and integration.

• Design highly scalable and resilient data architectures that align with organizational goals, ensuring that systems are optimized for low-latency and high-throughput use cases.

• Define and enforce EDA standards, protocols, and practices that facilitate reliable communication between services and systems.

KafkaImplementation and Optimization

• Architect, deploy, and manageKafkaclusters andKafka-based solutions for event streaming and processing across various business domains.

• Design and implementKafkatopics, partitions, and schemas, ensuring optimal throughput and efficient data distribution.

• DriveKafkaperformance tuning, including managing retention policies, consumer lag monitoring, and replication configurations to support high availability and fault tolerance.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with application development, data engineering, and DevOps teams to ensure seamless integration and operationalization ofKafkaand EDA components.

• Partner with business stakeholders to identify use cases that benefit from event-driven approaches and translate them into architectural requirements.

• Facilitate regular architecture review sessions to alignKafkaand EDA implementation with broader enterprise architecture objectives.

Governance and Compliance

• Define data governance and security standards for event data, including access controls, data retention policies, and data encryption for compliance with organizational and regulatory standards.

• Establish monitoring, alerting, and logging practices forKafkainfrastructure to ensure reliability, transparency, and quick incident resolution.

Innovation and Best Practices

• Research and propose new tools, technologies, and methodologies that complement event-driven architectures, such asKafkaStreams,KafkaConnect, and other data-streaming frameworks.

• Promote best practices for EDA, including event modeling, message format standardization, and handling of event sourcing and eventual consistency.

• Stay current with the latest developments in EDA,Kafka, and related open-source tools to continually improve the architecture's performance and adaptability.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or related career experience

• 8+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, with a focus on distributed systems and event-driven architectures.

• Proven expertise in designing, implementing, and scalingKafka-based solutions for real-time data processing.

• Advanced knowledge of ApacheKafka,KafkaStreams,KafkaConnect, and related ecosystem components.

• Proficiency in designing data streaming architectures, message-driven microservices, and asynchronous communication patterns.

• Strong experience with DevOps practices, includingKafkacluster deployment, monitoring, and automation tools.

• Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes) forKafkamanagement.

• Exceptional analytical skills, strong communication abilities, and experience working with diverse, cross-functional teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certifications in enterprise architecture (e.g., TOGAF) orKafka(e.g., Confluent Certified Developer for ApacheKafka).

• Experience with complementary streaming tools, such as Spark, Flink, or Pulsar.

• Understanding of data governance frameworks and practices for secure data streaming.

#LI-ZARD

Position & Application Details

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.

Equal Opportunity Employer: We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. #DEI