Senior Data Platform Engineer (all genders)

Who we are

Your tasks – this is what awaits you in detail

• You design, develop and maintain our streaming and CDC backbone (Apache Kafka, Debezium, Schema Registry, BigQuery Sinks) and our self-built workflow management platform Navarch, running on Kubernetes

• You drive architectural initiatives across the platform end-to-end — from idea to production — spanning streaming, orchestration, the warehouse and the observability layer that sits across them

• You operate and evolve our BigQuery multi-project setup, shaping access management, partitioning, slot strategy and cost-aware design patterns

• You shape how the platform supports domain analysts who ship their own pipelines — clear ownership boundaries, quality safeguards, and less hand-off friction between producers and the platform team

• You build and maintain observability across the data platform (Datadog, Slack-native alerting, cost dashboards) and you take care of our CI/CD pipelines on our self-hosted GitLab instance

• You shape how we manage BigQuery and Kafka cost at platform scale — FinOps is a live practice on this team, not a one-off

• You bring a senior perspective into architectural decisions across the platform — design reviews, merge-request reviews, and the multi-quarter initiatives the team runs

Your profile – this is what we expect from you

• You have several years of senior-level data-engineering experience, demonstrated by independent ownership of production systems — running on-call, shipping cross-component changes, and influencing architecture without process scaffolding around you
• You have strong problem-solving skills with a demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex, cross-component issues (schema evolution, broker lag, query performance, cost anomalies)
• You have professional experience in software engineering using Python and you have a working command of SQL on top of cloud data warehouses — partitioning, clustering, query cost, idempotency
• Strong experience with object-oriented programming and software design patterns, applied to data engineering applications
• You have hands-on experience with at least four of the following technologies:

  • Message brokers, ideally Apache Kafka (broker operations, schema registry, KRaft)

  • Change data capture, ideally Debezium

  • Orchestration tools (in-house, Airflow, Dagster or similar)

  • Public Cloud Providers, ideally Google Cloud Platform

  • Container orchestration, ideally Kubernetes (Helm, operators, KEDA/VPA)

  • Infrastructure as Code, ideally Terraform and/or Ansible

  • Data modeling and transformation, ideally dbt or comparable

• You can articulate trade-offs in your past decisions — batch vs. stream, build vs. buy, latency vs. cost, isolation vs. coupling — with concrete numbers from your own work

• You thrive in a Kanban-style, low-process environment where seniors organise their own work and rotate triage weekly

• You are fluent in English (C1) and enjoy working in a dynamic, international environment

What we offer

• Create your own work-life balance: You have the flexibility to choose between working remotely (within Germany) or from one of our locations in Cologne, Darmstadt, Düsseldorf, or in Berlin!
• Do you want to move to Germany? No problem – we offer you an attractive relocation package to give you a smooth start. 
• Urban Sports Club and RSG Group Fitness Studios: Get top deals for fitness, swimming, yoga and more
• Mental Well-Being: We support you on your well-being journey with special offerings such as Instahelp, the digital platform for online psychological counseling
• Vacation & Sabbatical: Enjoy 30 days of vacation per year and the opportunity to take a sabbatical once you have been part of the team for a certain period!
• Option for Pluxee restaurant vouchers: Buy Pluxee vouchers through us and benefit from tax-advantaged meal allowances!
• ‘Deutschlandticket’: We subsidize your train season ticket for more mobility
• Employee Discount: You will receive a monthly coupon for Kaufland.de
• Free choice of operating system: MacOS or Ubuntu Linux, it's up to you
• Boost your growth: Benefit from our online language learning programs, diverse in-house training, and our automated 360-degree feedback. We cover the costs for relevant conferences, training opportunities, and approved team workshops to strengthen personal interactions
• This is who we are: Our dynamic culture combines flat hierarchies, a start-up mentality, an international team of over 65 nationalities, and the strength of the Schwarz Group to provide you an agile and secure working environment.
• We are team players: From day one, you will connect not only with your team but also with others through our digital onboarding journey, the buddy program, and regular team and company events, all-hands meetings, powerful mornings, and much more!

Diversity at Kaufland e-commerce