Messaging Engineer - Part-Time

We are seeking a Messaging Engineer to design, implement, and maintain the messaging infrastructure supporting real-time data exchange between factory automation systems, MES, and enterprise IT platforms.

Key Responsibilities

Deploy and manage distributed message brokers (e.g. Apache Kafka, MQTT-based systems) to enable streaming communication from shop-floor equipment and sensors to cloud/data center applications.

Define and govern message topics/channels and data schemas to ensure consistent structure across all system events (e.g. equipment status, test results, alarm signals).

Optimize messaging infrastructure for low latency, high reliability, and lossless event delivery.

Implement monitoring and alerting for the messaging pipeline, tracking throughput, lag, and error rates, and troubleshoot issues in message flow health.

Collaborate with developers to integrate applications with the messaging layer and tune producer/consumer performance to meet factory throughput demands.

Required Skills

Strong expertise in message-oriented middleware and streaming platforms.

Hands-on experience deploying/managing Apache Kafka (preferred) or similar (RabbitMQ, IBM MQ, Apache Pulsar), including topic design, partitioning, replication, and broker configuration.

Proficiency in designing real-time data pipelines using pub/sub patterns for high throughput and fault tolerance (e.g. Kafka Connect, MQTT clients).

Solid programming skills in Java/Scala or Python for developing and optimizing producers and consumers.

Familiarity with messaging system internals (broker clustering, retention policies, consumer groups, offset management).

Preferred Skills

Experience with messaging in industrial/IoT contexts (MQTT, AMQP) for data collection from PLCs or IoT sensors.

Knowledge of data serialization formats and schema management (e.g. Avro, Protocol Buffers, Schema Registry).

Proficiency in monitoring tools for streaming systems (e.g. Prometheus/Grafana) and setting up alerts/dashboards.

Familiarity with integration patterns (enterprise service bus, event-driven microservices) and how messaging integrates with MES, databases, and analytics.