Open Source Software Engineer: Apache Kafka Committer

Overview

At NetApp, we have a history of helping customers turn challenges into business opportunities. That’s because we bring new thinking to age-old problems, like how to use data most effectively in the most efficient possible way. As an Engineer with NetApp, you’ll have the opportunity to work with modern cloud and container orchestration technologies in a production setting. You’ll play an important role in scaling systems sustainably through automation and evolving them by pushing for changes to improve reliability and velocity.

Own Every Moment at NetApp

At NetApp, your ideas power innovation. We lead in intelligent data infrastructure—delivering unified storage, integrated data services, and solutions that help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, from AI to multicloud.

Ready to innovate and contribute to our path to $10B? Here, you'll collaborate with passionate teams, tackle real-world challenges, and see your impact in how customers transform and grow. If you're ready to bring curiosity, creativity, and drive to every moment, NetApp is where your journey begins.

Job Summary

Are you an Apache Kafka committer who wants to operate at the highest level of technical and community influence? This role connects deep upstream work, including binding committer authority, KIP-level design, and protocol-aware engineering, directly to production-scale outcomes in enterprise Kafka deployments.

NetApp Instaclustr runs one of the industry's largest managed open source data platform portfolios, including Apache Kafka services for enterprise customers across financial services, retail, and technology sectors. Our open source engineering team contributes to projects that matter to production operators at scale, and this role strengthens our ability to influence Apache Kafka upstream in areas that affect reliability, performance, operability, and customer delivery.

You will work at both levels - upstream influence and customer impact - with meaningful autonomy, strong peer collaboration, and direct access to the product and field relationships. This is a globally distributed team with up to 10% travel. The role is based in one of our office locations - US (San Jose, Raleigh, Boston, or Seattle), Netherlands (Schiphol), or Ireland (Cork) and requires 3 days per week in office.

As a Senior Open Source Software Engineer, your responsibilities will include:

• Lead end-to-end upstream initiatives in Apache Kafka, from KIP authoring and design consensus through implementation, review, and release, in domains such as broker internals, storage and log management, replication, KRaft metadata quorum, consumer group coordination, Kafka Streams, Kafka Connect, observability, and release quality.
• Provide binding committer reviews on upstream patches and community contributions, applying the technical rigor and authority that moves high-quality work through the Apache Kafka review process.
• Contribute to Apache Kafka release management as part of the committer community, including release planning, blocker triage, test stabilization, release candidate validation, documentation readiness, and post-release follow-through.
• Translate enterprise customer and operator needs into credible upstream proposals, KIP-level designs, and sustained technical engagement that only a committer can supply; advise product and field teams on complex Kafka trade-offs.
• Shape community direction through evidence-based participation relevant Kafka community channels; influence project decisions on architecture, compatibility, protocol evolution, release policy, contribution standards, and long-term roadmap.
• Mentor engineers toward committer standing and raise overall contribution quality through rigorous review practices, test discipline, and clear engineering guidance.
• Improve upstream infrastructure, including CI reliability, test coverage, contributor tooling, ben