Integration Architect - Kafka

Integration Architect - Kafka Rate: £600 per day (Outside IR35) Duration: 6-month contract Location: London - 4 days per week onsite Overview: I'm currently supporting a client on a major transformation programme who are looking to appoint a highly experienced Integration Architect to define and lead their enterprise integration strategy. This is a hands-on technical architecture position where you'll be responsible for shaping the future integration landscape, establishing architectural standards and building a modern event-driven ecosystem. You'll work closely with engineering leadership to create an integration capability centred around Kafka, microservices, cloud native technologies and API-first principles, whilst helping to build and mentor a high performing integration engineering team. Responsibilities • Define and own the enterprise integration strategy across multiple business domains. • Design a scalable, event-driven architecture using Kafka as the core messaging platform. • Establish best practice integration patterns, architectural standards and governance. • Build and help scale a modern integration engineering capability, providing technical leadership and mentoring. • Design resilient, loosely coupled microservices architectures following domain driven design principles. • Lead architecture across APIs, messaging, streaming and asynchronous communication. • Drive the adoption of API-first and event-first development practices. • Produce high-quality architecture artefacts including target-state architectures, roadmaps, integration blueprints and technical standards. • Work closely with engineering teams to ensure architecture is delivered in line with strategic objectives. • Collaborate with senior stakeholders to align business goals with technical delivery. • Champion modern engineering practices including automation, CI/CD and cloud native development. Essential Skills • Proven experience creating and delivering enterprise integration strategies. • Extensive experience designing event-driven architectures. • Strong commercial experience with Kafka and event streaming platforms. • Deep understanding of microservices architecture and distributed systems. • API-first architecture using REST and asynchronous messaging patterns. • Strong Java and Spring Boot background. • Experience designing cloud-native integration platforms on AWS. • Strong understanding of messaging patterns, event sourcing and eventual consistency. • Experience establishing architectural governance and integration standards. • Excellent stakeholder management and technical leadership skills. Desirable Skills • Kubernetes (EKS) and container platforms • AWS services including API Gateway, SNS, SQS and EventBridge • DevOps and CI/CD pipelines • Integration observability and monitoring • Financial Services experience ideally (Payments, FX or Banking) Experience Required • 10+ years in solution or integration architecture. • Experience building enterprise integration capabilities from both a technical and strategic perspective. • Proven track record delivering large-scale event-driven platforms using Kafka. • Experience leading architecture across multiple engineering teams. • Strong background in cloud-native software engineering and distributed systems. • Comfortable operating as both a strategic architect and a hands-on technical leader. Reasonable Adjustments: Respect and equality are core values to us. We are proud of the diverse and inclusive community we have built, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our success is driven by our people, united by the spirit of partnership to deliver the best resourcing solutions for our clients. If you need any help or adjustments during the recruitment process for any reason, please let us know when you apply or talk to the recruiters directly so we can support you.