Staff Systems Engineer (Kafka)

Location: Emeryville, United States

Salary: $180,115–$233,090 per year

Company

hirify.global creates animated films and operates studio systems that support creative production and technical innovation.

What you will do

• Develop and implement a strategy to migrate Kafka infrastructure to on-premises management.
• Own Kafka operations, including maintenance, upgrades, support, and participation in an on-call rotation.
• Help administer the Perforce P4 digital asset version control system supporting filmmaking pipelines.
• Shape the strategic direction of data streaming services through resource planning, best-practice recommendations, and industry analysis.
• Coordinate with production, engineering, systems teams, and external vendors on configuration, security, patching, and service support.
• Troubleshoot complex Linux issues and lead large data systems projects through completion.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience implementing, maintaining, and supporting mission-critical Linux services.
• Expertise administering Kafka or other data streaming services.
• Automation skills with Python or shell scripting.
• Strong Linux systems engineering experience, including infrastructure as code and configuration management with tools such as Ansible, Puppet, or Terraform.
• Strong communication, problem-solving, collaboration, mentoring, and project leadership skills.
• Authorization to work in the United States is required; hirify.global participates in E-Verify.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with Perforce P4.
• Experience with vendor support, Elasticsearch, Splunk, or Oracle DB.
• Experience in an animation or VFX studio environment.
• Experience operating and securing cloud-based services.

Culture & Benefits

• Work directly on technical systems supporting hirify.global’s film production.
• Collaborate with production, engineering, systems teams, and external vendors.
• Participate in a creative community with art, board games, maker projects, and other activities.
• Full-time position with compensation adjusted for internal equity, geographic region, knowledge, skills, and experience.

Hiring process

• Include a cover letter with the application.