Senior Kafka / Event Driven Architecture Consultant - Freelance

Who we areBitrock is a high-end consulting and system integration company, strongly committed to offering cutting-edge and innovative solutions. Our tailored consulting services enable our clients to preserve the value of legacy investments while migrating to more efficient systems and infrastructure. We take a holistic approach to technology: we consider each system in its totality, as a set of interconnected elements that work together to meet business needs. We thrive on overcoming challenges to help our clients reach their goals, by supporting them in the following areas: Data, AI & ML Engineering; Back-end Engineering, Platform Engineering, Front-end Engineering, Product Design & UX Engineering, Mobile App Development, Quality Assurance, FinOps, Governance. The effectiveness of our solutions also stems from partnerships with key technology vendors, like HashiCorp, Confluent, Lightbend, Databricks, and Meterian. Who we are looking forWe are looking for a Senior Kafka / Event Driven Architecture Consultant to support a leading European e-commerce client in moving away from a legacy ERP-centric architecture.As Kafka (Confluent Cloud) adoption is in its early stages, our client wants to establish solid foundations before scaling across multiple teams. We need a hands-on consultant to assess their current setup, deliver architectural guardrails and golden paths, and drive the knowledge transfer needed to enable their engineering teams to use Kafka safely and autonomously. Role OverviewAs a Senior Kafka / Event Driven Architecture Consultant, you will sit at the intersection of architecture, platform engineering, and enablement. You will be responsible for evaluating existing event-driven infrastructure, setting up schema governance and operational guardrails, and mentoring internal engineers to build long-term capability. Key ResponsibilitiesAssess the current Kafka/Confluent Cloud setup (topics, schemas, client configs, IaC, observability) and deliver a prioritized findings report for 10x adoption scale.Design golden paths and guardrails: service skeletons with safe defaults, shared client libraries, schema governance rules, and topic-as-code workflows.Review dashboards and alerting while producing runbooks and troubleshooting guides for the platform team.Coach engineers hands-on and foster internal "Kafka champions." Required SkillsMust-Have:Production Kafka: 5+ years of hands-on production experience (tuning producers/consumers, debugging rebalance storms, managing schema evolution incidents).Confluent Cloud: Proven experience with Schema Registry, governance, Terraform provider, and managed-service boundaries.JVM Fluency: Deep fluency in Java, Kotlin, or Scala, including awareness of Spring Kafka pitfalls.Schema Governance: Strong experience with Avro and/or Protobuf (compatibility modes, evolution strategies).Observability: Proficiency with Grafana/Prometheus or Datadog, focus on Kafka metrics and alerting.Consulting Posture: Ability to assess fast, communicate effectively with engineers and managers, and deliver adopted technical artifacts.Languages: Fluent English. Nice-to-Have:Experience with Kafka Streams in production.DevEx and platform tooling experience.Familiarity with regulated environments, CQRS, Transactional Outbox, or CDC patterns. Contract DetailsType: Freelance (Contractor)Start Date: Immediate / ASAPDuration: 1 yearLocation: Remote (EU-based), with occasional travel required to Cologne Recruitment processOur recruitment process has 3 stages:First discovery short interview with our HR teamTechnical interview with our Team LeadersFinal interview with our Client How to applyYou can apply via LinkedIn or send your cv to hr@fortitudegroup.it