Sr. Technical Support Engineer - Confluent

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About the Role

Senior Technical Support Engineers work directly with customers to diagnose and resolve complex Apache Kafka and Confluent Platform issues. They manage high-priority production cases, lead difficult escalations, build customer trust, and collaborate with Engineering, Product, and other internal teams

What You’ll Do

In this role you will:

● Own and manage complex customer cases across production and non-production environments. ● Lead investigations for critical escalations and high-severity incidents. ● Troubleshoot distributed systems, Kafka, Confluent Platform, customer applications, and integrations. ● Define and manage resolution plans, including priorities, dependencies, risks, mitigations, and timelines. ● Communicate clearly with customers and set expectations during high-pressure situations. ● Collaborate with Engineering and Product to identify bugs, improve product quality, and provide field feedback. ● Create and review technical documentation, knowledge articles, and training material. ● Mentor and coach other TSEs and provide technical guidance across the team. ● Contribute to process, tooling, workflow, and supportability improvements. ● Participate in on-call and emergency-response activities as required. 

● At least 10 years' recent experience in software development, technical support, site reliability engineering or a similar technical role. ● Deep troubleshooting skills across distributed systems and infrastructure. ● Practical knowledge of Apache Kafka, Confluent Platform, Linux, networking, cloud platforms, and relevant programming or scripting languages. ● Ability to analyse logs, metrics, configurations, source code, and customer environments. ● Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly. ● Demonstrated customer empathy, incident ownership, and ability to remain effective under pressure. ● Provide technical leadership during complex customer engagements, acting as a recognised subject matter expert across the organisation ● Ability to work independently on ambiguous and technically complex problems.

● Apache Kafka or other distributed messaging technologies. ● Java development. ● Public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or Google Cloud). ● Kubernetes, Docker or containerised environments. ● Linux system administration. ● Networking fundamentals (DNS, TLS, load balancing, firewalls). ● CI/CD pipelines and software development lifecycle practices. ● SQL, data analysis or scripting (Python, Bash or similar). ● Observability platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana or OpenTelemetry. ● Experience using AI-assisted tools to improve troubleshooting, automation and knowledge management.