Senior DevOps Engineer (all genders) | Data Platform

Responsibilities

Our client, a confidential e-commerce technology organization, is seeking a Senior DevOps Engineer to join their Data Platform team. In this role, you will:

• Run and own a self-hosted Apache Kafka backbone and Schema Registry end-to-end, managing ACLs, client quotas, certificates, upgrades, and disaster recovery
• Operate Debezium-based change data capture pipelines, overseeing connectors, snapshots, offsets, replica lag, and BigQuery sink loaders
• Run workloads on Kubernetes, including a self-built workflow orchestrator executing approximately 7,500 SQL and Python tasks daily, owning resource management, autoscaling, and debugging
• Automate and own access management and infrastructure as code across self-hosted GitLab CI/CD pipelines, replacing manual tickets with code-driven policies
• Own observability and infrastructure costs, including Datadog across Kafka and sink loaders, Slack-native alerting, and maintaining visibility into Kubernetes, Kafka retention, and log volume expenses
• Carry triage responsibilities on a rotating basis, handling ingestion and access requests, schema alerts, and supporting analysts while helping automate processes via AI-assisted review
• Act as a senior sparring partner alongside two senior data engineers, driving design reviews and multi-quarter initiatives with opportunity to grow into BigQuery architecture
• Optionally participate in 24/7 on-call rotation

What We're Looking For

• Several years of experience operating production infrastructure with personal ownership, including on-call rotation; ability to explain specific system failures, permanent fixes, and concrete trade-offs you navigated
• Deep hands-on expertise in Apache Kafka broker operations, including cluster sizing, partition rebalancing, replication, ISR behavior, and version upgrades
• Production experience operating cross-system data replication, ideally Debezium on Kafka Connect, or database replication via binlog, GTID, WAL, or agent-based pipelines
• Strong production experience with Kubernetes, resource management, autoscaling, and debugging complex failure modes
• Infrastructure and access as code management across multiple environments (Terraform and Ansible preferred; Pulumi, Helm, or serious configuration management also counts) following strict least-privilege IAM approach; GCP experience ideal or transferable AWS/Azure knowledge
• Production-grade Python and SQL skills with a cost-conscious mindset toward query performance, scanning volume, and data pruning
• Ability to thrive in a low-process, Kanban-driven environment where seniors self-organize, rotate weekly triage duties, and prefer automating recurring requests
• Fluent English (C1 level) and comfort working in an international team environment
• Optional skills or interest in object-oriented design, data modeling/dbt, BigQuery architecture, orchestration frameworks, stream processing, or internal automation

Location: Remote within Germany or Cologne / Düsseldorf / Darmstadt / Berlin

Employment Type: Permanent Contract, Full-time or Part-time

How We Work with You

We are representing our client in this confidential search. Interested candidates should apply directly through Get A Job.ai. Our recruiting team will screen applications and coordinate interviews. Once we identify a strong match, we will submit your profile to the client for consideration. Please do not attempt to contact the client directly, as all communication will be managed through our talent team to ensure a smooth and professional process.

Pay

Compensation details will be discussed during the screening process based on your experience and qualifications.

Equal Employment Opportunity: Get A Job.ai is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status.