Site Reliability Engineer, Core Streaming

Yelp

Site Reliability Engineer ensuring fast and reliable Kafka data streaming infrastructure management at Yelp. Collaborating with teams to enhance data processing reliability in a scalable manner across platforms.

Posted 4/12/2026full-timeRemote • California, Illinois, New York, Washington • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $141,000 - $216,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

ApacheCloudJavaKafkaLinuxPython

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design, deploy, and maintain large-scale Kafka event streaming infrastructure across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Collaborate with engineers to enable new features, ensure data pipeline reliability, and advise on best practices for real-time data processing.
Execute and automate Kafka cluster upgrades, migrations, and major version rollouts with minimal impact to critical services.
Build or enhance self-service capabilities and automation for cluster operations, scaling, and incident recovery.
Troubleshoot complex issues affecting data flow, performance, or stability, and drive root cause analyses.
Participate in on-call rotations.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Strong hands-on experience designing and implementing large-scale Kafka event streaming capabilities in production, across hybrid or multi-cloud and Linux environments, including upgrades and migrations between platforms or versions.
In-depth knowledge of event streaming/data-in-motion design principles, architecture, and operational nuances.
Programming proficiency in Java, Python, or similar modern languages for tooling, integration, and automation.
Familiarity with Kafka Client APIs (Producer, Consumer, Streams), as well as sizing and capacity planning for high-throughput clusters.
Experience designing and optimizing real-time data streaming solutions with technologies like Apache Flink.
Knowledge of automating infrastructure and operational tasks (configuration management, IaC, scripting, or related).
Problem-solving mindset with an eagerness to learn, take initiative, and advocate for infrastructure best practices in a fast-paced environment.
A Bachelor’s Degree or an equivalent work experience is required.

Benefits

Comp & perks

There may be flexibility with the range included in this posting should a candidate be leveled higher or lower than the posted range.
This opportunity has the option to be fully remote in all locations across the US.

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Hard Skills & Tools

Kafkaevent streamingLinuxJavaPythonApache Flinkconfiguration managementInfrastructure as Code (IaC)scriptingdata pipeline reliability

Soft Skills

problem-solvingeagerness to learninitiativeadvocacy for best practices