AVP : Software Engineer- Kafka (103102)

Purpose of the role

To design, develop and improve software, utilising various engineering methodologies, that provides business, platform, and technology capabilities for our customers and colleagues. 

Accountabilities

• Development and delivery of high-quality software solutions by using industry aligned programming languages, frameworks, and tools. Ensuring that code is scalable, maintainable, and optimized for performance.
• Cross-functional collaboration with product managers, designers, and other engineers to define software requirements, devise solution strategies, and ensure seamless integration and alignment with business objectives.
• Collaboration with peers, participate in code reviews, and promote a culture of code quality and knowledge sharing.
• Stay informed of industry technology trends and innovations and actively contribute to the organization’s technology communities to foster a culture of technical excellence and growth.
• Adherence to secure coding practices to mitigate vulnerabilities, protect sensitive data, and ensure secure software solutions.
• Implementation of effective unit testing practices to ensure proper code design, readability, and reliability.

Assistant Vice President Expectations

• To advise and influence decision making, contribute to policy development and take responsibility for operational effectiveness. Collaborate closely with other functions/ business divisions.
• Lead a team performing complex tasks, using well developed professional knowledge and skills to deliver on work that impacts the whole business function. Set objectives and coach employees in pursuit of those objectives, appraisal of performance relative to objectives and determination of reward outcomes
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.
• OR for an individual contributor, they will lead collaborative assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will identify new directions for assignments and/ or projects, identifying a combination of cross functional methodologies or practices to meet required outcomes.
• Consult on complex issues; providing advice to People Leaders to support the resolution of escalated issues.
• Identify ways to mitigate risk and developing new policies/procedures in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Take ownership for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work done.
• Perform work that is closely related to that of other areas, which requires understanding of how areas coordinate and contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the organisation sub-function.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategy.
• Engage in complex analysis of data from multiple sources of information, internal and external sources such as procedures and practises (in other areas, teams, companies, etc).to solve problems creatively and effectively.
• Communicate complex information. 'Complex' information could include sensitive information or information that is difficult to communicate because of its content or its audience.
• Influence or convince stakeholders to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

Join us as a Software Engineer- Kafka at Barclays, where you'll spearhead the evolution of our digital landscape, driving innovation and excellence. You'll harness cutting-edge technology to revolutionize our digital offerings, ensuring unapparelled customer experiences. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in cloud-native technologies, distributed streaming platforms, Kubernetes orchestration, and multi-region architecture patterns.

To be a successful Software Engineer- Kafka, you should have experience with:

• D esign, develop, and operate event‑driven architectures (EDA) using industry‑standard messaging and streaming platforms, ensuring high throughput, low latency, and resilience.
• Provide deep expertise in stream processing concepts including event ordering, partitioning, replay, schema evolution, and exactly‑once/at‑least‑once semantics.
• Act as a technical authority for streaming and EDA design decisions across delivery teams.
• Demonstrated, hands‑on expertise with Confluent Kafka ecosystem including topics, partitions, producers/consumers, schema registry, connectors, and operational best practices.
• Build and maintain stream‑processing applications using Kafka Streams, applying stateful and stateless processing patterns to support real‑time business events and data enrichment use‑cases.
• Apply sound streaming design principles such as event ordering, idempotency, replay handling, back‑pressure management, and schema evolution across distributed consumers.
• Strong hands‑on coding capability with a consistent focus on clean code, testability, performance, and maintainability.
• Contribute directly to production‑grade codebases and review peer code to enforce Barclays engineering standards and quality gates.
• Deliver software using Agile methodologies, actively participating in sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives, and continuous improvement.
• Apply DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for change, change failure rate, MTTR) to drive delivery predictability and engineering health.
• Champion engineering discipline, automation, and data‑driven decision making across delivery cycles.
• Strong familiarity with modern developer tooling including GitLab, DevSecOps pipelines, and secure CI/CD practices.
• Hands‑on experience with: Docker Desktop for local containerized development, IntelliJ IDEA or equivalent enterprise IDEs and Secure source control, branching strategies, and automated quality gates
• Drive a test‑first, quality‑driven engineering culture with hands‑on experience in:
  • Contract Testing (PACT) for consumer‑provider assurance
  • Unit Testing (JUnit) and integration testing
  • Performance & load testing (JMeter)
  • Mutation testing to validate test effectiveness
• Ensure test coverage and automation are embedded into CI/CD pipelines, not treated as post‑delivery activities.
• Working knowledge of AWS services relevant to event‑driven and streaming workloads.
• Experience deploying and operating workloads on Kubernetes (K8s), including container orchestration and scaling concepts.
• Demonstrate strong awareness and practical adoption of AI‑assisted engineering practices with AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, GitLab Duo, Copilot or equivalent) to support code generation, refactoring, documentation, and test creation, while retaining engineering judgement and accountability.

Some other highly valued skills may include:

• Own end‑to‑end delivery of Kafka‑centric components as a Individual Contributor (ICE), with strong engineering accountability and minimal supervision.
• Work effectively within Agile/Scrum delivery models, using Jira for backlog management, delivery tracking, and sprint execution.
• Apply strong analytical and troubleshooting skills to diagnose and resolve complex issues in distributed, event‑driven systems.
• Demonstrate excellent verbal and written communication, producing clear architecture designs, decision records, and technical documentation.
• Collaborate closely with cross‑functional teams (engineering, DevOps, security, architecture) to deliver integrated, enterprise‑ready solutions.
• Exhibit strong ownership, self‑drive, and innovation mindset, staying current with cloud‑native technologies and modern engineering best practices.