Lead Kafka Developer at System One
Pittsburgh, PA
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Jul 11, 2026
Pittsburgh, PA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level contract role focused on designing and operating Apache Kafka streaming architectures and data pipelines in a production enterprise environment. Day-to-day work covers cluster administration, topic and schema standards, performance tuning, and troubleshooting, alongside technical leadership responsibilities such as mentoring developers and conducting code reviews. Suits an experienced Kafka engineer with a background in distributed, event-driven systems and hands-on production support, coding primarily in Java or Scala.
Senior level · Pittsburgh, PA · Contract
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 200 people in the Pittsburgh, PA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 85–310
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $127,238 (middle half $97,661–$159,195).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The posting is titled 'Lead Kafka Developer – Software Engineer Lead'; 'Lead' maps to Senior on the standard ladder. The role involves technical leadership and mentoring but no explicit people-management (headcount, hiring, budget) signals, so 15-1252 Software Developers is preferred over 11-3021 Computer and Information Systems Managers.
The role is heavily Kafka-platform-focused (cluster ops, streaming architecture, pipeline design), which creates some ambiguity with 15-1243 Database Architects; however, the emphasis on writing producers/consumers/streams code and providing technical leadership tips it toward Software Developers.
Compensation is listed only as 'Contractor Work Model' with no dollar figure provided.
Degree requirement is listed as 'Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience' — equivalent experience is explicitly accepted, so no hard degree gate applies.
Java and Scala are listed together as 'Java and/or Scala' in the requirements section, making them interchangeable; Python is explicitly called out as 'a plus' (preferred).
Distributed Systems, Event-Driven Architecture, and Kafka Monitoring & Performance Optimization appear in the requirements section but name no specific technology or tool, so they are omitted from the skills list per extraction rules.
Posting is for a contract engagement — the market benchmarks below price full-time roles, so read the comp comparison with that in mind.
Read the full posting
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