Data Platform Team Leader

We are looking for an experienced Data Platform Team Leader to lead a team of platform specialists responsible for mission-critical data, streaming, and AI infrastructure in a large-scale enterprise environment.

This is a hands-on leadership role combining technical ownership, architectural guidance, and people management while working with cutting-edge Data, AI, and Cloud technologies.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor a team of Data Platform specialists.
• Own and manage the enterprise Confluent Platform, including Kafka, Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, REST Proxy, Confluent Cloud, and ksqlDB.
• Manage enterprise Data Platforms, including Azure Synapse.
• Own and maintain DataOps, MLOps, and GPU infrastructure.
• Manage supporting platforms such as Apache NiFi, PortX, Fluent Bit, and Filebeat.
• Lead platform implementation, migration, upgrade, and modernization projects.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues.
• Provide technical and architectural guidance to Data Engineering and Data Science teams.
• Collaborate with vendors, architects, and cross-functional engineering teams.
• Drive automation, monitoring, and observability initiatives.
• Lead Capacity Planning, High Availability, and Disaster Recovery processes.

Requirements:

• At least 3 years of experience leading technical teams.
• At least 5 years of experience implementing, operating, and maintaining Data and/or Streaming platforms.
• Strong hands-on experience with Linux.
• Extensive experience with Apache Kafka / Confluent Platform (On-Premises), including all core components.
• Proven experience troubleshooting complex production environments.
• Experience working closely with development teams and solution architects.
• Hands-on experience with one or more of the following: Hadoop, Cloudera, Databricks, Spark, or Azure Synapse.
• Experience with Ansible.
• Experience in DataOps, MLOps, or AI Platforms.