About the Company

A leading telecommunications operator is investing heavily in real-time data infrastructure to power analytics, AI, and network automation. The central streaming platform, built on Apache Kafka with Flink, is the backbone for network telemetry, security monitoring, customer analytics, and IoT. The organisation is shifting from batch-first to streaming-first, and this role owns that agenda.

Requirements

• 10+ years in data/platform/software engineering, with 3-5 years in a leadership role
• Deep Apache Kafka expertise – architecture, operations, schema governance, ecosystem (Connect, Streams, Schema Registry)
• Hands-on Apache Flink or comparable stream processing
• Telco or large-scale enterprise experience – OSS/BSS, network data, or enterprise platforms
• Proven track record building or scaling a central streaming platform
• Strong architectural thinking – event-driven architecture, microservices, API design, integration patterns
• Cloud & containers – AWS/Azure/GCP, Kubernetes, CI/CD
• Excellent stakeholder management – C-level to engineering teams
• Strong communication – translates technical complexity into business value

Experience:

• Leadership: Defined and executed a streaming strategy at enterprise scale; built and grew teams; influenced at C-level; drove organisational change from batch-first to streaming-first.
• Technical depth: Kafka at scale, cluster architecture, topic design, schema governance, exactly-once semantics, operational reliability; stream processing trade-offs; event-driven patterns; schema evolution without breaking downstream; observability for streaming.
• Delivery & operations: Ran streaming platforms in production at telco scale (millions of events/day); improved reliability and reduced incidents; managed vendor and integrator relationships; delivered projects on time and within scope.

Business and ecosystem: Connected streaming to business outcomes (network ops, customer experience, security, AI); familiar with telecom data landscape; engaged with industry standards (TM Forum, IDSA, iSHARE); brings a relevant industry network.

Darwin Recruitment is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.

Phila Bitterhout