Staff Engineer

Responsibilities

• Own the internal Kafka distribution including branch management, patch curation, and release cutting
• Contribute upstream to Apache Kafka through bug fixes, KIPs, and code reviews
• Diagnose and fix deep broker/controller issues regarding replication, KRaft consensus, and log storage
• Build custom patches for performance tuning and observability hooks
• Establish engineering practices for Kafka development, testing, and benchmarking
• Mentor supporting engineers and grow the team's capability
• Act as the internal authority on Kafka internals to advise platform teams
• Interface with audit and compliance teams to ensure regulatory standards are met

Requirements

• Deep familiarity with the Kafka codebase (broker, controller, or client internals)
• Track record of upstream contribution to Apache Kafka
• Strong distributed systems fundamentals (consensus protocols, replication, log-structured storage)
• Systems-level programming comfort with JVM internals, OS-level I/O, and networking
• Experience maintaining a fork or distribution
• 8+ years of experience in systems/infrastructure software engineering

Preferred Qualifications

• Apache Kafka Committer or PMC member
• Experience with KRaft
• Authored or co-authored a KIP
• Experience with Kafka Streams or Kafka Connect internals
• Familiarity with Kafka's test infrastructure (Trogdor, ducktape)

Benefits

• Medical, Critical Illness, Accidental, and Life Insurance
• Wellness programs and onsite medical center
• Maternity, Paternity, and Adoption assistance
• Relocation and travel support
• Retirement benefits including PF and NPS
• Higher education assistance and car lease options

About the Company

PhonePe is a leading digital payments platform in India with over 600 million registered users, processing over 330 million transactions daily.