Consulting EngineerThe Consulting Engineer (CE) is a customer-facing technical expert responsible for designing, building, and operating data-in-motion solutions on Confluent. Consulting Engineers focus on deep technical mastery in event streaming, working hands-on across development and operations to implement best-practice architectures, accelerate delivery, and help customers become self-sufficient on the Confluent platform.They work tirelessly on customer engagements, learning how #oneteam truly operates while earning #customerlove by #gettingshitdone, and building the delivery “muscle memory” that underpins a long-term career in event streaming and distributed systems.Key ResponsibilitiesSolution Design, Development & OperationsDesign and implement Confluent- and Kafka-based solutions, including topics, schemas, connectors, ksqlDB/Flink jobs, and client applications.Develop and review application code, automation, and integration logic to meet performance, reliability, and security requirements.Configure and tune Confluent Platform/Cloud components (brokers, schemas, connectors, security, observability) for customer use cases.Troubleshoot complex issues across the stack (apps, networking, storage, security, infrastructure) and drive them to resolution.Delivery & ExecutionOwn core delivery activities for small to medium projects or workstreams within larger programs (e.g., Exploration, Foundation, Acceleration, Migration).Follow and improve delivery frameworks, runbooks, and reusable assets to drive consistent, high-quality outcomes.Identify delivery risks, dependencies, and technical gaps; propose mitigations and feed them into the broader engagement plan.Collaborate closely with Solutions Architects and Engagement Managers on estimates, scoping assumptions, and implementation plans.Customer Enablement & Best PracticesProvide hands-on enablement to customer engineers and operators via pair programming, code reviews, configuration assessments, and knowledge-transfer sessions.Teach and apply Confluent best practices in areas such as topic design, schema evolution, multi-tenant controls, performance tuning, and resilience patterns.Capture and share lessons learned as internal artifacts (how-to guides, examples, playbooks) that improve the PS practice at scale.Practice Development & CommunityContribute to internal guilds and communities of practice, sharing patterns, tools, and improvements to PS offerings.Participate in case studies, internal tech talks, or external meetups/blogs aligned to personal interests and practice priorities.Support interviews, onboarding, and informal mentoring of more junior team members or partners.Required QualificationsStrong, hands-on experience with Apache Kafka and/or Confluent Platform/Cloud in real-world projects (producers/consumers, partitions, consumer groups, replication, security).Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Java, Scala, Python, C#) and associated build/test tools.Solid understanding of distributed systems, data engineering, or big data technologies (e.g., Kafka, Flink/stream processing, Spark, NoSQL, or similar).Demonstrated experience implementing and operating production workloads (on-prem and/or cloud), including monitoring, alerting, capacity planning, and incident response.Experience in a customer-facing role (consulting, professional services, or similar) with evidence of owning deliverables and solving complex technical problems under time and stakeholder pressure.Strong written and verbal communication skills, including documenting designs, explaining trade-offs, and collaborating with cross-functional teams.Preferred QualificationsExperience with public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and infrastructure-as-code or DevOps tooling (e.g., Terraform, Kubernetes, CI/CD).Background integrating event streaming with downstream systems (databases, data warehouses, analytics platforms, SaaS), including performance and reliability considerations.Prior work in Professional Services or Consulting, with comfort working in a billable, engagement-based model.Contributions to open-source projects, meetups, blogs, or technical communities related to streaming, data engineering, or distributed systems.Role LevelingWithin the Professional Services & Education career framework, the Consulting Engineer ladder spans multiple levels (e.g., Associate Consulting Engineer, Consulting Engineer, Senior Consulting Engineer, Staff Consulting Engineer, Principal Consulting Engineer). Expectations increase by level across:Technical mastery in event streaming and adjacent technologies.Delivery scope and complexity (from well-defined tasks to leading high-complexity migrations and unification programs).Influence and impact (from individual contribution to cross-team leadership, practice development, and external thought leadership).The Consulting Engineer role sits on the Service Delivery / Consulting Engineers track and is closely aligned with the Solutions Architect ladder, sharing common competencies but with a stronger emphasis on hands-on implementation and operations.