Senior Engineering Manager - Kafka Platform, Data Contract

Target

Hybrid Actively hiring
Brooklyn Park, MN Posted 84 days ago $132,000–$238,000 / year
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At a glance

AI generated

TL;DR

As a Senior Engineering Manager at Target, you will lead a team responsible for developing and managing Kafka-based systems that power analytics, operational systems, and AI. Your daily tasks include evolving data contracts and schema standards across Avro, JSON, and Protobuf, ensuring production-grade reliability for ingestion services, and partnering with other engineering teams to modernize data ingestion patterns. You will also guide the migration and sunset of legacy systems while maintaining stability and cost efficiency. This role requires 7+ years of software engineering experience, including people leadership, with a focus on building cloud-native distributed systems and high-performance APIs at scale. Key skills include resilient production architecture, reliability engineering, product leadership, and Agile/DevOps methodologies. You will influence enterprise direction and drive technical strategy aligned with Target’s platform standards, all while fostering a high-performing team culture.

Skills

Kafka Avro JSON Protobuf Cloud-Native Distributed Systems APIs Resilient Architecture Reliability Engineering Agile CI/CD DevOps Python Java Go PostgreSQL AWS Azure GCP Terraform Kubernetes Docker Git Jenkins Prometheus Grafana

What you'll do

  • Lead evolution of data contracts and schema standards across Avro, JSON, Protobuf.
  • Drive production reliability for schema and ingestion services with resilience and observability.
  • Partner to modernize analytics and AI ingestion patterns across platform and data engineering.
  • Guide migration and sunset of Autobahn while maintaining stability, reliability, and cost discipline.
  • Define multi-year platform vision aligned with product thinking and enterprise governance standards.

What we're looking for

  • 7+ years of software engineering experience with people leadership or equivalent.
  • Proven track record in building and operating cloud-native, distributed systems at scale.
  • Strong background in resilient production architecture and reliability engineering.
  • Experience in product leadership including roadmaps, OKRs, and migration execution.
  • Track record of developing high-performing teams within large enterprise environments.
  • Ability to influence cross-domain stakeholders and drive alignment across ecosystems.

Market check

Salary context

This $132,000–$238,000 range sits above 44% of similar postings on FindRole.

Peer median band

$151,000–$245,750

Median floor and ceiling across peers.

Typical midpoint (25–75%)

$151,875–$246,150

Middle half of comparable postings.

Based on 240 comparable postings.

* 240 is the maximum number of comparable postings sampled.

Employer

About Target

Target Corporation is a large-format general merchandise and grocery retailer offering a wide assortment of everyday essentials, apparel, home goods, and electronics through stores and online. Industry: General Merchandise Retail

Target currently has 42 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $98,000–$176,000 across 42 roles with salary data.

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View all roles at Target

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