At a Glance
- Tasks: Own and scale Kafka infrastructure, ensuring reliability and high availability for our platform.
- Company: Join Trade Republic, Europe's largest savings platform with a mission to democratise wealth.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, relocation support, flexible hybrid work, and a culture of ownership.
- Other info: Dynamic team environment focused on innovation and career growth opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on financial systems while collaborating with top talents and cutting-edge tech.
- Qualifications: 5+ years in platform engineering, strong Kubernetes and AWS networking skills required.
The predicted salary is between 80000 - 100000 £ per year.
Please note that these positions are based in London, Berlin or Paris — relocation support is provided if required.
Trade Republic is the largest savings platform in Europe — we operate in 18 countries, serving +10 million customers who trust us with over €150B in assets. But we're striving for more. We have a bold mission to empower everyone to build wealth with easy, safe, and free access to financial systems. You will have the opportunity to grow your career by collaborating with a team of outstanding talents and state of the art technology to build a lasting, positive future for millions.
ABOUT PLATFORM ENGINEERING
Platform Engineering is the backbone of Trade Republic's engineering velocity. Our mission is to build scalable platforms for a Europe-scale bank — serving internal engineers, and building in-house control planes for managing the bank's infrastructure. We’re a ~50-person Platform team focused on one thing: enabling product engineers to move fast and operate autonomously by default. We build self-service platforms, golden paths, and opinionated tooling so that over 400 engineers can ship with confidence. From Kubernetes fleet management and CI/CD to an internal Developer Hub built on Backstage, our work underpins every trade, savings plan, and card payment that flows through the platform.
WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING
- Run Kafka at scale: Own the reliability and uptime of our Kafka fleet — design for high availability across domains and shards, engineer for resilience, and ensure near-zero downtime across maintenance, upgrades, and failure scenarios.
- Build the streaming platform: Design and implement the control plane that makes the multi-cluster platform real — cluster lifecycle automation, topic and ACL provisioning, cross-shard replication, and the self-service interfaces that let product engineers onboard without understanding the infrastructure underneath.
- Make streaming best practices the default: Define standards for how product engineers produce and consume — topic design, schema management, consumer group patterns, and reliability practices — and embed them into the platform so the right thing is always the easiest thing.
- Own the platform end to end: Participate in the on-call rotation, ensuring full ownership of the systems you build and operate.
- Own the direction: Shape the roadmap, drive cross-team initiatives, and align the streaming platform with broader engineering and business goals.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
- 5+ years in infrastructure, platform engineering, or a related SRE/systems discipline.
- Production Kubernetes at the control-plane level - CRDs, the reconciliation model, and writing/operating controllers or operators - with hands-on Cluster API (CAPA/CAPI) managing clusters as versioned resources, not hand-maintained infrastructure.
- Zero-downtime migration of live production clusters onto a managed GitOps lifecycle - not just greenfield provisioning.
- Building an infrastructure control plane with Crossplane (authoring compositions/XRDs) or a comparable reconciler.
- Terraform expected - but this role is continuous reconciliation, not one-shot provisioning.
- GitOps at fleet scale with Flux (or Argo CD) as the single source of truth, including versioned add-on rollout across the fleet with per-environment config overrides.
- Strong AWS networking: VPC/IPAM, private-only endpoints, PrivateLink/VPC Endpoint Services, cross-account IAM (IRSA), Cilium/CNI internals, and DNS at scale.
- Backend engineering in Go - you'll write and operate custom control-plane components, not just YAML and Helm.
- Own it in production: on-call for what you build, making it observable (CAPI/Flux state → metrics, SLOs, alerts), and weighing reliability, compliance, and cost.
- The ability to work in a flexible hybrid setup, with 2-3 days a week in the office.
WHY YOU SHOULD APPLY NOW
Our culture rewards ownership, excellence, and high energy. We care deeply about outcomes and hold each other accountable — we're here to win and fix one of the largest challenges Europeans face — closing the pension gap and democratising wealth. If this gets you fired up, reach out!
We believe it’s our team’s varied identities and backgrounds that make us sharper and stronger. We’re committed to creating an environment where everyone feels respected and has equal opportunity to thrive in their careers. For any questions on DEI during the interview process, reach out to your recruitment partner.
Senior Kafka Platform Engineer in London employer: Trade Republic
Trade Republic is an exceptional employer that fosters a dynamic and inclusive work culture in the heart of London. With a strong emphasis on employee growth, we offer ample opportunities for professional development while ensuring a supportive environment where your contributions are valued. Join us to be part of a team that prioritises collaboration and innovation, making every day at work both meaningful and rewarding.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Kafka Platform Engineer in London
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Trade Republic or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Trade Republic.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Trade Republic.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Trade Republic that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Kafka Platform Engineer in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Trade Republic.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Trade Republic and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Trade Republic
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Trade Republic uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
