I’m helping Century 21 Accent Homes find a top candidate to join their team full-time for the role of Kafka + Data Pipeline Engineer (Remote / Contract). This is a cool job because you’ll get to build advanced messaging systems with Kafka & AI tech for a legacy-driven real estate leader since 1973. Compensation: USD 2.8K - 4K/month. Location: Remote (anywhere). Mission of Century 21 Accent Homes: “We are pro-actively promoting the interests of our clients through real estate target marketing, honest evaluation of property values, and open communications.” What makes you a strong candidate: - You are proficient in KsqlDB, Node.js and Python. - English - Conversational. Responsibilities and more: Responsibilities: - Design and implement Kafka topics for processing communication data from Gmail, LeadSimple, and other sources. - Build a middleware API to: - Trigger on incoming Gmail messages. - Enrich messages using LeadSimple’s API. - (Optionally) perform Rent Manager lookups for property metadata. - Filter out spam and irrelevant messages using logic such as sender whitelisting or LeadSimple contact validation. - Maintain a `conversation_context` table using Tableflow or ksqlDB for enriched thread metadata. - Ensure messages are properly routed to Kafka (`communication-events`) with clean, AI-ready JSON. - Collaborate with internal teams to define message schemas, enrichment fields, and downstream AI use cases. - Set up lightweight monitoring and logging for errors and failed enrichments. - Advise on infrastructure best practices (e.g., using Redis for caching, managing Pub/Sub backpressure, etc.). Requirements - Proven experience working with Kafka (Confluent Cloud or self-hosted). - Hands-on experience with: - Kafka Streams or ksqlDB. - REST API integrations (especially Gmail API and/or CRMs like LeadSimple). - Proficiency in Python, Node.js, or similar backend languages. - Familiarity with event-driven architecture and streaming design patterns. - Experience with at least one cloud provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure). - Solid understanding of asynchronous job handling, retry logic, and webhook workflows. - Ability to structure clean, enriched JSON events for AI, analytics, and automation. - Excellent communication skills to clearly explain technical concepts to ops-minded teams. Nice-to-Have: - Experience with OpenAI API, LangChain, or vector databases like Pinecone or Chroma. - Experience building agent-style tools (like Slack bots or AI copilots). - Prior exposure to property management systems or service scheduling tools. - Experience with Tableflow or other streaming-state tools.