Confluent is pioneering a fundamentally new category of data infrastructure focused on data in motion. Have you ever found a new favorite series on Netflix, picked up groceries curbside at Walmart, or paid for something using Square? That’s the power of data in motion in action—giving organizations instant access to the massive amounts of data that is constantly flowing throughout their business. At Confluent, we’re building the foundational platform for this new paradigm of data infrastructure. Our cloud-native offering is designed to be the intelligent connective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organization. With Confluent, organizations can create a central nervous system to innovate and win in a digital-first world.

We’re looking for self-motivated team members who crave a challenge and feel energized to roll up their sleeves and help realize Confluent’s enormous potential. Chart your own path and take healthy risks as we solve big problems together. We value having diverse teams and want you to grow as we grow—whether you’re just starting out in your career or managing a large team, you’ll be amazed at the magnitude of your impact.

About the Role:

Cloud Native Kafka org is responsible for high profile functional areas that are critical for the growth and success of Confluent. We are proud of taking on seemingly impossible challenges, and over-delivering on those. Our engineers love solving complex distributed systems and infrastructure problems. Real-time infrastructure is the future and we are creating a new category for it - Data in Motion. If you are interested in building a better world with this new category or building a Saas infrastructure that spans multi-cloud, then come join us. We are re-imagining Apache Kafka as a cloud native data service - fully serverless, elastic, multi-tenant and at scale. Our goal is to make Kafka a completely hands-free, serverless experience for customers, running at the largest scale imaginable for the lowest cost of ownership.  

Chart your own path and take healthy risks with the backing and support of our #OneTeam culture. Be part of inclusive initiatives like Employee Resource Groups and development programs, and take advantage of benefits that support our diverse global teams. Grow as we grow—whether you’re just starting out or managing a large team, you’ll be amazed at the magnitude of your impact.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead a team of engineers - provide feedback and support their career development. 
• Drive the definition, design and delivery of cutting edge features for Kafka on Confluent Cloud.
• Drive business impact in the areas of performance, scalability, cost efficiency and elasticity of Kafka, especially as a cloud-native product. You will work closely with other engineering leaders to prioritize improvements in all these areas - from a culture of continuous improvement to prioritizing large and high impact initiatives that will fundamentally change Kafka.
• Create competitive advantages for Confluent by driving technical innovation.
• Establish quality standards, design principles, and operational maturity for your team
• Drive long-term direction and strategy, while maintaining high levels of productivity and execution standards within your organization.

What We’re Looking For:

• Experience leading teams of 20 engineers or more
• Ability to hire while ensuring a high hiring bar, keep engineers motivated, coach/mentor, and handle performance management
• Experience running production services at large scale and high availability
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems architecture and design
• Experience prioritizing and leading high profile initiatives with many teams and stakeholders. 
• Great track record of shipping features and project execution. Ability to move fast, iterate on incremental improvements, create a sense of urgency, and excellent prioritization skills
• Ability to influence the team, peers, and upper management using effective communication and collaborative techniques; focused on building and maintaining a culture of collaboration within the team
• Passionate about customer success and experience

What Gives You an Edge:

• Prior knowledge of cloud architecture and implementation features (multi-tenancy, elastic, networking, kubernetes)
• Prior knowledge of Apache Kafka
• Experience working with open source communities

#LI-SD1

At Confluent, equality is a core tenet of our culture. We are committed to building an inclusive global team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, beliefs, and experiences. The more diverse we are, the richer our community and the broader our impact.

Confluent requires all employees (in office and remote) in the U.S. to be vaccinated for COVID-19. Consistent with federal, state, and local requirements, Confluent will consider requests for reasonable accommodation based on medical conditions/contraindications or sincerely-held religious beliefs where it is able to do so without undue hardship to the company.

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