Platform Services Middleware Engineer

REMOTE ROLE

ROLE: Platform Services Middleware Engineer

Location: Raleigh NC (preferred)/Remote

Duration: 6 months

Job Title: Platform Services Middleware Engineer (IBM MQ, Confluent Kafka, OpenShift) ________________________________________

Role Summary

Seeking a hands-on engineer to design, build, and support enterprise messaging platforms with a focus on IBM MQ, Confluent Kafka, deployed in AWS and OpenShift. This role emphasizes DevOps practices, CI/CD automation, and scripting-driven deployments. Ansible Automation Platform experience is a plus.

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Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain IBM MQ (queue managers, channels, clustering, security) and Confluent Kafka (brokers, topics, ACLs, Connect, Schema Registry).
• Deploy and manage Kafka and MQ on OpenShift (OCP) and/or AWS; containerization and operator-based deployments.
• Automate platform provisioning and configuration using CI/CD pipelines, scripting (Bash/Python), and Ansible playbooks.
• Ensure security (TLS/mTLS, SASL/OAUTH), high availability, and disaster recovery for messaging platforms.
• Implement monitoring/alerting and troubleshoot performance issues.
• Collaborate with application teams on event-driven architecture and best practices.

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Required Skills

• IBM MQ and Confluent Kafka build and operational experience in production environments.
• Strong DevOps background: CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows.
• Proficiency in Linux, Bash/Python scripting, and automation tools.
• Experience with OpenShift (OCP) deployments and containerized middleware.
• Knowledge of AWS services for hosting and integrating messaging platforms.
• Security protocols: TLS/mTLS, SASL/OAUTH; observability stacks.

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Preferred Skills

• Ansible Automation Platform playbook development.
• Event-driven architecture patterns and governance.
• Disaster recovery and multi-region Kafka replication strategies.