Leidos is seeking a Kafka Administrator with Ansible to be part of the mission solution and help lead SSA’s Digital Modernization Strategy.  Join one of our high performing teams responsible for building the next-generation enterprise APIs and modern applications using data streaming and event driven architecture to modernize the speed at which business is done. We serve the Social Security Administration (SSA) and their mission to meet the changing needs of the public, positively impacting at least 65 million American lives per month.  We are a team of forward-looking professionals in need of a strong candidate with these key required skills: Kafka Architecture, Ansible Automation, RHEL/Linux Administration, Scripting (Bash, Shell, Python), Availability Monitoring / Triage (Splunk, Dynatrace, Prometheus). 

If this sounds like a mission you want to be a part of, keep reading!

TEAM CULTURE

Your passion and values might be a good fit for our teams if you answer “yes” to the following questions:

• Are you looking for a company that puts employees first, with a focus on career, flexibility, and well-being?
• Do you enjoy collaborating with colleagues and teammates and believe that the best ideas are fostered in an inclusive environment?
• Are you searching for a team with a strong sense of ownership, urgency, and drive for daily mission success?
• Are you comfortable with proactive outward communication and technical leadership?
• Do you enjoy being a catalyst, solving complex problems, and providing innovative solutions?
• Do you have the flexibility, creativity, and resilience to pivot the mission for success?
• Do you have the courage to make tough ethical decisions with pride, transparency, and respect?

MENTORSHIP & CAREER GROWTH

Our teams are dedicated to supporting new team members in an environment that celebrates knowledge sharing and mentorship. Experienced team members will be assigned to new hires for one-on-one mentoring, collaborative reviews, and coaching on customer engagement to help each new hire successfully onboard and demonstrate their skills. Projects and tasks are assigned in a way that leverages your strengths and will help you further develop your skillset.

DAY TO DAY RESPONSIBILITIES

Every position we take is more rewarding when you know the why behind it. Know your work makes a difference to support those who need it most. If your passion is enabling life changing service to those around, you this is the place for you. Find you passion in a team environment where all members are valued regardless of contractor or employee status.   Find your “Why” with us and take your place in our Leidos Family!!

• Architect, design, develop, and implement next-generation data streaming and event-based architecture / platform using software engineering best practices in the latest technologies:
  • Data Streaming, Event Driven Architecture, Event Processing Frameworks
  • DevOps (Jenkins, Red Hat OpenShift, Docker, SonarQube)
  • Infrastructure-as-Code and Configuration-as-Code (Ansible, Terraform / CloudFormation, Scripting)
• Administer Kafka including automating, installing, migrating, upgrading, deploying, troubleshooting, and configuring on Linux.
• Provide expertise in one or more of these areas: Kafka administration, event-driven architecture, automation, application integration, monitoring and alerting, security, business process management/business rules processing, CI/CD pipeline and containerization, or data ingestion/data modeling.
• Investigate, repair, and actively ensure business continuity regardless of impacted component: Kafka Platform, business logic, middleware, networking, CI/CD pipeline, or database (PL/SQL and Data Modeling).
• Brief management, customer, team, or vendors using written or oral skills at appropriate technical level for audience
• All other duties as assigned or directed

FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS (Basic Qualifications)

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering or a related field. Experience may be substituted in lieu of degree.
• Master’s or Doctorate degree may substitute for required experience
• 8+ years of combined experience with Site Reliability Engineering, providing DevOps support, and/or RHEL administration for mission-critical platforms, ideally Kafka.
• 4+ years of combined experience with Kafka (Confluent Kafka, Apache Kafka, Amazon MSK)
• 4+ years of experience with Ansible automation

• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust. Contract requirement.

*** Selected candidate must reside within two (2) hours of SSA Headquarters in Woodlawn, MD

*** Selected candidate must be willing to work on-site at least 2 days a week.

FACTORS TO HELP YOU SHINE (Required Skills)

These skills will help you succeed in this position:

• Strong experience with Ansible Automation and authoring playbooks and roles for installing, maintaining, or upgrading platforms
• Solid experience using version control software such as Git/Bitbucket including peer reviewing Ansible playbooks

• Hands-on experience administrating Kafka platform (Confluent Kafka, Apache Kafka, Amazon MSK) via Ansible playbooks or other automation.
• Understanding of Kafka architecture, including partition strategy, replication, transactions, tiered storage, and disaster recovery strategies.
• Strong experience in automating tasks with scripting languages like Bash, Shell, or Python

• Solid foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) administration
• Basic networking skills
• Solid experience triaging and monitoring complex issues, outages, and incidents
• Experience with integrating/maintaining various 3rd party tools like ZooKeeper, Flink, Pinot, Prometheus, and Grafana.
• Experience with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) using Red Hat OpenShift/Kubernetes and Docker containers
• Experience working on Agile projects and understanding Agile terminology.

HOW TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD (Desired Skills)

Showcase your knowledge of modern development through the following experience or skills:

• Preferred Confluent Certified Administrator for Apache Kafka (CCAAK) or Confluent Certified Developer for Apache Kafka (CCDAK)
• Practical experience with event-driven applications and at least one event processing framework, such as Kafka Streams, Apache Flink, or ksqlDB.
• Understanding of Domain Driven Design (DDD) and experience applying DDD patterns in software development.
• Experience working with Kafka connectors and/or supporting operation of the Kafka Connect API
• Experience with Avro / JSON data serialization and schema governance with Confluent Schema Registry.
• Preferred experience with AWS cloud technologies or other cloud providers; AWS cloud certifications.
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (CloudFormation / Terraform, Scripting)
• Solid knowledge of relational databases (PostgreSQL, DB2, or Oracle), NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Cassandra,  DynamoDB), SQL, or/and ORM technologies (JPA2, Hibernate, or Spring JPA)
• Knowledge of Social Security Administration (SSA)

At Leidos, we deliver innovative solutions through the efforts of our diverse and talented people who are dedicated to our customers’ success. We empower our teams and contribute to our communities. Everything we do is built on a commitment to do the right thing for our customers, our people, and our community. Our Mission, Vision, and Values guide the way we do business. Every position we take is more rewarding when you know the why behind it. Know your work makes a difference to support those who need it most. If your passion is enabling life changing service to those around, you this is the place for you. Find your passion in a team environment where all members are valued regardless of contractor or employee status.  We are excited for you to take your place in our Leidos Family.

Are you an US citizen, US resident, or Visa candidate and think you might fit? We recommend you apply and start the conversation today! Join us in supporting our SSA contracts in Woodlawn, Maryland.

ITSSCII

Original Posting Date:

2024-04-29

While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range:

Pay Range $101,400.00 - $183,300.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.