Senior Software Engineer, Managed Streaming Kafka (MSK)

Come build the future of data streaming with the Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK) team. We're looking for builders who want to work on one of the fastest-growing services in AWS. Amazon MSK is a fully managed Apache Kafka service, and if you care about data streaming, open source, and operating at scale, this is the team. You'll work across the full stack: the control plane APIs, the Kafka platform itself, and the tooling that makes Kafka easier to run for everyone. Upstream compatibility is a core tenet. Your changes to Kafka ship back to open source. That's the deal, and it's a good one. You get to build inside AWS and contribute to one of the most widely adopted open-source platforms in the world. Day to day, you'll design features, improve performance, prototype solutions, and ship code that serves customers directly. You'll collaborate with engineers across the team and work with senior leaders to shape the roadmap, including identifying what needs to change in the upstream platform to unlock what customers need next. We're looking for people who've built large-scale distributed systems, who enjoy hard problems, and who can reason about tradeoffs at the intersection of performance, reliability, and cost. Experience with Kafka, Kinesis, Flink, or Spark is a plus. What matters more is that you're curious, you ship, and you think in systems. Recent MSK innovations: - MSK Replicator for External Clusters (April 2026): Replication from external Apache Kafka clusters to MSK Express Brokers and back, enabling migration and multi-cloud distribution. - Topic Management APIs (February 2026): New CreateTopic, UpdateTopic, and DeleteTopic APIs with console integration, eliminating the need to maintain Kafka admin clients. - Apache Kafka 4.1 Support (October 2025): Queues as a preview feature, a new Streams Rebalance Protocol in early access, and Eligible Leader Replicas (ELR). - 5x More Partitions on Express Brokers (July 2025): Partition-bound workloads can now be hosted on fewer brokers, simplifying cluster sizing. - Seamless Certificate Renewals (May 2025): Brokers receive updated encryption certificates without restarts. - Express Brokers (re:Invent 2024): Up to 3x more throughput per broker, 20x faster scaling, 90% faster recovery, and hands-free unlimited storage. - KRaft Mode (May 2024): Clusters run without ZooKeeper, supporting up to 60 brokers. - Tiered Storage (2023): Decouples compute from storage to optimize cost and scalability. Learn more about Amazon MSK: - AWS re:Invent 2024: Express Brokers for Amazon MSK - AWS re:Invent 2023: How Rivian builds real-time analytics from electric vehicles - AWS re:Invent 2021: How Coinbase uses Amazon MSK as an event store for applications - AWS re:Invent 2020: How Goldman Sachs uses an Amazon MSK backbone for Transaction Banking Platform - AWS re:Invent 2020: How New Relic is migrating its Apache Kafka cluster to Amazon MSK - AWS re:Invent 2018: Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) Launch - MSK Tiered Storage: Optimize cost and improve Kafka scalability Utility Computing (UC) AWS Utility Computing (UC) provides product innovations from foundational services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2 to consistently released new product innovations that continue to set AWS apart in the industry. As a member of the UC organization, you'll support the development and management of Compute, Database, Storage, Internet of Things (IoT), Platform, and Productivity Apps services in AWS, including support for customers who require specialized security solutions for their cloud services. About the team ABOUT AWS: Diverse Experiences Amazon values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying. Why AWS Amazon Web Services (…