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Build reliable event-driven systems with

Apache Kafka Experts

matched in minutes from over 15,000 CVs

Hire experts who design streaming architectures, build Kafka Streams applications and connect Kafka to cloud data platforms. FRATCH uses precise AI matching to help you find vetted, available freelancers quickly.

Meet FRATCH Experts who have recently used Apache Kafka

Verified expert

Robert D.

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Software Architect

Lübeck
Robert D.

Last position:

Java Software Architect at adesso insurance solutions GmbH

Verified expert

Shamaila M.

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Senior Software And Platform Architect

Heilbronn
Shamaila M.

Last position:

Founder/Kubernetes and Cloud Architect at Kubekanvas

  • Developed browser based platform for kubernetes no-code deployment and cluster management
  • Developed CLI in Typescript to deploy the resources in the cluster without leaving the browser UI.
  • Implemented DevSecOps pipelines: image scanning, SBOM, policy enforcement, supply-chain security and used Kyverno. Implemented IAM integration for the command line utility tool.
  • Designed role & permission models for Keycloak, oAuth/OIDC, social login flows.
  • Used LLM to convert user intent into the diagram.
  • Worked on integration with multiple Sovereign Cloud like stackIt, Hetzner, CIVO, UpCloud plus public clouds like AWS, GCP, Azure
  • The technology stack includes Java, SpringBoot, Kubernetes, OpenAI, Kubernetes multi-tenancy using vCluster, Karpenter, RBAC for CLI, Helm, React
Verified expert

Niko S.

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Developing Architect / Solution Architect

Hamburg
Niko S.

Last position:

Developing Architect, Technical Lead "gridlytics" at HH Energienetze

  • Built a data integration platform for high-, medium- and low-voltage assets to enable contextual analysis of time series with master data from SCADA control systems (IEC 60870 104), INIS and SAP.
  • Responsible for the architecture and implementation of the solution, and acted as a sparring partner for the Product Owner.
  • Technologies used: Kotlin, Spring Boot, Maven, TimescaleDB, PostgreSQL, liquibase, Elements IoT, Docker, Kubernetes, Grafana, Python, jupyter and various API gateways.
Verified expert

Vili D.

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Senior Data Engineer, Data Architect, Software Developer

Neuenhagen
Vili D.

Last position:

Technical Lead, Data Engineer at Mercedes-Benz Consulting

  • Optimized the data architecture (Medallion) to better decouple processing steps and improve transparency and reproducibility

  • Ensured the technical quality of data processing in Databricks by introducing schema enforcement, data quality checks, and a structured data architecture

  • Pipeline orchestration with Azure Data Factory

  • Improved and automated the development and deployment process by integrating Git and GitHub Actions

  • Technical leadership of the Data Engineering team (3 employees)

  • Led workshops to optimize and stabilize the data platform and development process

  • Collected and prioritized new requests and maintained the product backlog

  • Technologies: Microsoft Azure (Data Lake, Data Factory), Databricks, Apache Spark (PySpark), Python, SQL, Git, Confluence, Power BI, Power Apps, Dataverse, MS Sharepoint, Mural

Verified expert

Umut G.

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Freelancer

Frankfurt
Umut G.

Last position:

Data Architect at BA Technology

I am an experienced data engineer specializing in end‑to‑end data integration, cloud DWH architectures, and high‑quality, governed data products.

I delivered following projects and engagements as a freelancer.

  • Data Migration of CRM System for AL-FA Objekt Service Gmbh
  • Microsoft Software Resales Partnership

I am looking for freelance roles like: Freelance Data Engineer Cloud Data Warehouse Architect Data Modeling & Architecture Consultant MDM & Data Governance Specialist BI & Analytics Developer

Technical Focus Areas

  • Data Engineering & Integration: SQL Server/SSIS, Informatica PowerCenter/IDQ, Talend, Kafka, Azure Data Factory – Delta/CDC/ELT patterns, robust pipelines, monitoring/recovery, data lineage & impact analysis, medallion architecture Bronze/Silver/Gold layers
  • DWH & Cloud: Azure SQL / Data Lake / Synapse, AWS Redshift/S3, on‑prem SQL/Oracle – scalable data marts with a strong cost/benefit focus.
  • Data Modeling: Atomic (Inmon) and Dimensional (Kimball), Data Vault (Linstedt), Domain‑Driven Design, clear lineage & contracts.
  • MDM & Governance: Informatica MDM, IBM MDM, stewardship processes, data quality rules, survivorship/XREF, catalog/glossary, SIF/BES/REST publication.
  • Analytics/BI: Power BI, SSAS, Cognos – business‑ready, maintainable data products.
Verified expert

Hachem S.

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Machine Learning & BI Lecturer

Munich
Hachem S.

Last position:

Machine Learning & BI Lecturer at EU Business School

  • Taught ML, BI, and Big Data to Master's students.

Tech: Python, Power BI, SQL, ML, SnowflakeDB, databricks, MS Fabric, MongoDB, LLM

Verified expert

Ornel Franck W.

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Purchasing Manager, Logistics, IT Manager & Software Architect

Frankfurt am Main
Ornel Franck W.

Last position:

Sales Partner at ERGO PRO

  • Industry: Insurance, Trade, IT
  • Customers & Projects: Consulting and selling insurance and similar services
  • Main tasks: Insurance consulting (health insurance, retirement planning, wealth building); commercial services, inside and field sales; sales data analysis and forecasting; customer consulting and support; opening a new sales headquarters for private and business customers; business development & innovation management; business use case development; process optimization; stakeholder management; team leadership and training; preparation and delivery of trainings;
  • Technologies used: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Draw.IO, Camunda 8, Java (8, 17,21,25), Git, Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring Data REST, Spring Web, Spring Security, J-Unit, Playwright, Lombock, Vaadin, H2, PostgreSQL (16, 17 18), pgAdmin, Docker, LLMs, JasperSoft Studio, JasperReports
Verified expert

Khalid E.

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Lead Architect & Developer

Alsbach-Hähnlein
Khalid E.

Last position:

Lead Architect & Developer at kem-consulting

  • Development of an agent-based governance platform for the automated assurance of EU AI Act compliance and ODA-compliant orchestration of AI services in complex enterprise environments.

  • Design and implementation of an agent-based "Mission Control" framework (Aletheia Conductor) for autonomous state monitoring and process control.

  • Development of "Compliance-as-Code" (CaC) solutions based on OPA/Rego for system-wide enforcement of regulatory guardrails.

  • Integration of TM Forum ODA standards (TMF630, TMF622, TMF642) to ensure interoperability and standardization.

  • Building a highly available event-driven architecture using Redpanda and CloudEvents v1.0 for near-real-time event processing.

  • Implementation of an audit-proof "Evidence Chain" through cryptographic linking of trace logs in preparation for automated audits.

  • Tech Stack: Java 21 (Quarkus Native), TypeScript (Next.js), Redpanda (Kafka API), CloudEvents v1.0, OPA (Open Policy Agent) & Rego, TimescaleDB, ZincSearch, Redis, TM Forum ODA, Git, GitHub, Clean Code Development, Like-C4.

Verified expert

Kiriakos K.

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Platform Engineering Tech Lead / Architect

Nickenich
Kiriakos K.

Last position:

Tech Lead / Architect : OTTO API Platform at OTTO

Maturing their API practices on both a business and technology level. My role covers strategy, architecture, developer advocacy as well as hands-on software engineering, enabling both technical teams and business leadership to adopt and act on API-centric principles effectively. Coincidentally, we also establish GitOps, DX and platform best practices with this project.

Highlights:

  • Aligning executives with the initiative by clarifying strategy, replacing misconceptions and myths with facts, clarifying the value of existing assets and enabling informed decision-making
  • Formulating a way forward for API Lifecycle Management at OTTO
  • Driving platform progress and fostering developer engagement by hands-on engineering work towards strategic goals

API Lifecycle Management, Team Topologies, Organizational Evolution, Regulatory, Platform Advocate, Developer Platform, Communities of Practice, Terraform, Kotlin, Kafka, Kong, WSO2, Apigee, Gravitee, Backstage, AsyncAPI, OpenAPI, API Design, AWS, React, Node.js, TypeScript, Redocly, reactive programming, CDC, Golang, Gin, GitOps, DX (developer experience), stakeholder management, roadmaps, workshops, discovery.

Verified expert

Sercan T.

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Certified Professional for Software Architecture Foundation Level

Esslingen am Neckar
Sercan T.

Last position:

Co-Founder & Lead Software Architect at Pflege-Pfad

  • Focus: System architecture, cloud-native platforms, microservices, API design
  • Product: Pflege-Pfad is a digital placement platform that directly connects relatives of people in need of care with verified care services and caregivers – without an agency and without ongoing fees.
  • Business analysis & process design:
  • Analysis of the German care market and identification of the key pain points of both target groups.
  • Modeling of core business processes: registration, verification, care request, application, placement, and rating.
  • Definition of the business model as a freemium/premium model with optional contact unlocking.
  • Creation of user stories and requirements documentation for relatives, care services, and administrators.
  • Design of trust and quality assurance mechanisms with document upload, admin review process, and rating system.
  • Coordination with stakeholders and validation of product decisions with potential users.
  • Technical implementation:
  • Design and implementation of the entire platform architecture as the sole developer.
  • Design and implementation of a REST API with Spring Boot and Kotlin, including JWT-based authentication.
  • Development of the frontend as a single-page application with Angular 17.
  • Implementation of the AWS infrastructure with EC2, RDS PostgreSQL, S3, CloudFront, and IAM.
  • Document upload with AWS S3 using presigned URLs to verify care services.
  • Email notifications via Resend API.
  • AI-supported care service search via OpenAI API.
  • Implementation of complete user flows such as registration, login, password reset, and the placement process.
  • Development of an admin panel for user and care service management as well as analytics.
  • CI/CD with GitHub Actions and containerized deployments with Docker.
  • End-to-end tests with Playwright.

Technologies: Kotlin, Spring Boot 3, Spring Security, JWT, JPA/Hibernate, PostgreSQL, Angular 17, TypeScript, RxJS, AWS (EC2, ECS, S3, CloudFront CDN, RDS PostgreSQL, IAM), nginx, GitHub Actions, Playwright, Maven, Git, OpenAI API, Resend API, Docker, Scrum, i18n (DE/EN/TR), Kiro, feature flag architecture.

Verified expert

Jens R.

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Technical Product Owner

Kerpen
Jens R.

Last position:

Platform Architect & Senior Developer at Direct client, industrial measurement technology, medium-sized company

  • Technical leadership across hardware, firmware, and software teams; scope: hardware/firmware team (4 people) and leadership group (5 people)
  • Consolidated and documented a product family that had grown over more than 15 years and aligned it with CRA compliance — from the bare-metal I/O module to the cloud interface.
  • Provided the most important customer product with the essential requirements and architecture documentation within two months — for a firmware landscape that had grown over more than 15 years. It now supports the customer’s modernization strategy.
  • Established a monthly reporting line to the supervisory board and executive board within three months: nine meetings since 12/2025. The report itself is versioned and built from the CI pipeline; it is based on automatically collected activity and release data instead of assessments.
  • Built a container-based CI/CD infrastructure from scratch: cross-compilation, host tests, and documentation builds in one continuous pipeline.
  • Introduced declarative QA gates for DevOps and development artifacts — from the start using lefthook instead of pre-commit, executed in a dedicated container image.

Technologies used: arc42, req42, tpo42, docToolchain, PlantUML, ArchiMate, C4 model, ADR, C, C++ (GTest), CMake, Bare Metal (ARM Cortex-M3/M7), OCI containers, Jenkins, lefthook, Prometheus, Grafana, SBOM, CRA, OPC, SCADA, PLC integration, IPv6 migration, Zero Trust, Sociocracy 3.0, Cynefin

Verified expert

Ajay C.

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Software Developer & AI Engineer | Python, RESTful APIs, CI/CD, DevOps

Braunschweig
Ajay C.

Last position:

Software Engineer & Cloud AI Developer at TANGILITY GmbH

Built Python-based AI microservices and integrations for an AEC/VR Unity-based SaaS app, focusing on LLM/VLM capabilities, retrieval-backed systems, RESTful APIs, containerized deployment, and an automation microservice for the CAD-to-Unity pipeline.

  • Developed a custom Hybrid A* based algorithm in C# to simulate hospital scenarios, detect early-stage design conflicts using collision/spatial data, and generate structured reports.
  • Solved and automated the time-consuming task of converting CAD files into usable Unity environments with a custom real-time pipeline. Used a ZeroMQ-based communication layer to distribute workloads across multiple processes and achieve real-time performance.
  • Built a Dockerized FastAPI pipeline for CAD-to-Unity automation, combining vision-based object matching, image embeddings, and precomputed metadata to automatically map CAD objects to Unity behavior scripts, assign properties, and reduce repeated AI inference calls.
  • Created documentation and examples to help technical users understand, configure, and extend the AI automation pipeline.
Verified expert

Collin K.

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Lead Fullstack Developer

Kempen
Collin K.

Last position:

Software Architect / Fullstack Developer at Equity Bytes

Built an international e-commerce platform for a multi-vendor marketplace for digital assets from scratch. Designed and operated cloud native architectures at enterprise scale.

  • Designed and operated a highly scalable microservice and serverless architecture
  • Built the complete cloud infrastructure with Terraform + AWS CDK in AWS
  • Provisioned ECS/EKS clusters (Fargate), Application Load Balancers (reverse proxy), and Lambda functions
  • Observability & tracing with CloudWatch, DataDog, Prometheus, and Grafana
  • End-to-end setup with DataDog (formerly AWS CloudWatch), Prometheus, and custom Grafana dashboards
  • Integration of advanced metrics (including ORM mapper) and distributed tracing with Jaeger
  • Robust backup and disaster recovery strategies
  • RDS Postgres backups and hourly snapshots
  • Read-only, asynchronously synchronized replicas with automated master failover in emergencies
  • Minute-level rollback capability through versioned Docker images on ECS and Git-based CI/CD pipelines
  • Created CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions for automated multi-stage deployments (Dev, Testing, Prod)
  • Integrated Stripe for international payment processing
  • Built a marketplace payment system with multiple parties and payout routines
  • Used Algolia for high-performance real-time search of digital assets on the platform
  • Federation of services with GraphQL and Hasura
  • Later migration to GraphQL Mesh
  • Test Driven Development (TDD) - unit, integration, and E2E testing with Jest, Vitest, and Playwright
  • Used Next.js / React for modern frontend applications in the nx monorepo
  • Enterprise security architecture & access control
  • Integration of JWT tokens with Auth0, OAuth, OIDC, IP guards, BOLA protection, and secret vaults
  • Authorization concepts with RBAC, ABAC, and native Postgres Row-Level Security (RLS)
  • Built internal microfrontends with Retool for fast prototyping and operational business processes

Technologies: ABAC, AWS CDK, AWS CloudWatch, AWS ECS, AWS EKS, AWS Fargate, AWS RDS, AWS S3, Algolia, Auth0, DataDog, Docker, GitHub Actions, Grafana, GraphQL, GraphQL Mesh, Hasura, JWT, Jaeger, Java, JavaScript, Jest, Kotlin, Kubernetes, Monorepo, Next.js, OIDC, Playwright, Postgres, Postgres RLS, Prometheus, RBAC, Redis, Retool, Serverless, Stripe, Terraform, TypeScript, Vitest

Verified expert

Alexander Z.

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Senior Data Architect & Data Engineer

Berlin
Alexander Z.

Last position:

Senior Data Solutions Engineer at VMware Inc.

  • Architected and deployed private cloud data platform on VMware vSphere, integrating Greenplum MPP, Apache Kafka, Kubernetes, and Apache Solr, and developed real-time ingestion pipelines with Kafka Connect and Schema Registry.
  • Led Oracle Exadata to Greenplum migration, rearchitected data models, optimized storage, implemented RabbitMQ with Debezium for CDC, and deployed VectorDB for Generative AI.
  • Designed and executed multi-cloud migration PoC across AWS, Azure, and GCP, defined KPIs for throughput, latency, and cost efficiency, executed bulk data transfers, validated analytics and streaming workloads, and delivered full-scale architecture recommendations.
  • Assessed legacy on-premises infrastructure and designed modern cloud-native data platforms using Greenplum and containerized microservices, advising on scalability, disaster recovery, and high-availability.

Discover over 15,000 top freelancers

Statistics of experts using Apache Kafka

Aggregated from the professional profiles of matched freelancers.

Experience

18 years

Apache Kafka experts have 18 years of professional experience on average.

Position duration

2.7 years

Apache Kafka experts stay in a single position for 2.7 years on average.

Positions per freelancer

13

Apache Kafka experts have completed 13 positions on average over the course of their careers.

Top business areas

Information Technology, Product Development, Quality Assurance

Apache Kafka experts have gathered most of their hands-on project experience in Information Technology, Product Development, and Quality Assurance.

Top industries

Information Technology, Banking and Finance, Automotive

Apache Kafka experts are most in demand in Information Technology, Banking and Finance, and Automotive.

Certification focus areas

Information Technology, Product Development, Project Management

Apache Kafka experts earn their certifications most often in Information Technology, Product Development, and Project Management.

Bachelor's degree or higher

92%

92% of Apache Kafka experts hold at least a Bachelor's degree.

Master's degree or higher

56%

56% of Apache Kafka experts hold at least a Master's degree.

Doctorate

9%

9% of Apache Kafka experts have a doctorate (PhD).

Certifications per freelancer

2

Apache Kafka experts hold 2 professional certifications on average.

Most common languages

German, English, French

Apache Kafka experts most often speak German, English, and French.

Speak two or more languages

98%

98% of Apache Kafka experts speak two or more languages.

Based on our profile pool as of 5 Nov 2026.

Daily rate distribution

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
3% of Apache Kafka experts charge less than €400 per day.
45% of Apache Kafka experts charge between €400 and €800 per day.
45% of Apache Kafka experts charge between €800 and €1200 per day.
4% of Apache Kafka experts charge between €1200 and €1600 per day.
2% of Apache Kafka experts charge €1600 or more per day.
<€400 €400-​800 €800-​1200 €1200-​1600 €1600+

The chart shows how the daily rates of experts in this technology are distributed, based on recent contracts on our platform. Each bar covers a rate range — its height shows the share of experts charging within that range.

Average rates of experts using Apache Kafka

Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.

1000
750
500
250
Rate comparison chart
Daily rate avg. 784 €

The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.

1000
750
500
250
Rate comparison chart
Median rate 800 €

The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.

Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 5 Nov 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.

Apache Kafka experts industry focus

See which industries our matched freelancers work in most often — every figure is calculated live from the freelancers on FRATCH.

  • Information Technology (96%)
  • Banking and Finance (58%)
  • Automotive (42%)
  • Retail (40%)
  • Transportation (35%)
  • Manufacturing (33%)
  • Insurance (30%)
  • Healthcare (29%)

Please note that freelancers can work across multiple industries, so percentages overlap.

About the technology

Event streaming

Apache Kafka is a distributed event streaming platform for moving, storing and processing continuous data. Companies use it to connect services, capture business events and power real-time applications without tightly coupling every system.

Core workloads

Kafka supports high-volume event pipelines across transactions, telemetry, customer activity and operational data. It can feed analytics, search, fraud detection, recommendations and internal workflows while retaining events for later replay.

  • Stream changes from operational databases
  • Connect services through durable events
  • Enrich and transform data in motion
  • Deliver real-time feeds to applications

Ecosystem and tooling

The Kafka ecosystem includes Kafka Connect for integrations, Kafka Streams for application processing and Schema Registry for managing event contracts. Strong specialists also work with ksqlDB, Confluent components, observability tools, container orchestration and cloud-native Kafka services.

When expertise matters

Companies often bring in freelance expertise during platform migrations, event-driven redesigns and data pipeline modernisation. Specialist support is valuable when teams need safer partitioning, replication, schema evolution, access controls or a clear operating model.

  • Replace fragile point-to-point integrations
  • Plan topics, partitions and retention
  • Tune consumer groups and delivery behaviour
  • Diagnose lag, rebalancing and throughput issues

Delivery and operations

A reliable Kafka setup needs more than topic creation. Professionals define event ownership, delivery guarantees, failure handling and data contracts, then automate deployment and monitoring. They may also integrate Kafka with Kubernetes, Java, Python, databases and cloud storage.

Choosing a specialist

Look for practical evidence across architecture, application code and production operations. A strong professional can explain trade-offs between ordering, latency, durability and cost, and can make an event model understandable to both technical and business teams. Experience with recovery testing and observability is essential for dependable streaming systems.

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Frequently asked questions

What clients ask us most about Apache Kafka — answered in short.

Apache Kafka is used to publish, store and process streams of events between applications and data systems. Common uses include service integration, change data capture, real-time analytics, telemetry and event-driven workflows.

Kafka keeps ordered event logs that consumers can read and replay, while many traditional queues focus on handing a message to a consumer and removing it. The right choice depends on retention, replay, throughput, delivery guarantees and operational complexity.

An Apache Kafka specialist should understand distributed systems, data modelling, APIs and failure handling. Useful adjacent skills include Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, Schema Registry, Kubernetes, Java or Python, cloud services and monitoring.

The required depth depends on the scope. A simple integration may need focused Kafka delivery skills, while a production platform requires someone who can design partitions, replication, security, schema evolution, recovery procedures and observability.

Kafka projects can usually be handled remotely when documentation, access controls and deployment workflows are organised. On-site work may help during sensitive migrations or incident response, but architecture reviews, implementation and testing can be coordinated across locations.

Kafka Streams is a good fit when processing logic should run close to Kafka topics and remain part of an application codebase. It can simplify stateful transformations and joins, while a separate stream processor may suit broader cross-platform processing needs.

Ask the Kafka professional to explain a real event design, including partition keys, ordering, retries, consumer groups and recovery. Strong answers connect technical decisions to business impact and include testing, monitoring and operational ownership.

Apache Kafka is the open-source core project, while Confluent Kafka commonly refers to Confluent's distribution and surrounding commercial services. The distinction matters when evaluating managed features, connectors, governance, support and deployment responsibilities.

The average hourly rate of freelancers who have used Apache Kafka in their recent projects is 98 €, which corresponds to a daily rate of about 784 € based on an 8-hour working day.

Of the freelancers who have used Apache Kafka in their recent projects, 92% hold at least a Bachelor's degree, 56% hold at least a Master's degree, and 9% hold a doctorate.

On average, freelancers who have used Apache Kafka in their recent projects have 18 years of professional experience, with a single engagement typically lasting around 2.7 years.

The most common languages among freelancers who have used Apache Kafka in their recent projects are German (97%), English (97%), and French (16%).

The most common industries among freelancers who have used Apache Kafka in their recent projects are Information Technology (96%), Banking and Finance (58%), and Automotive (42%).

The most common business areas among freelancers who have used Apache Kafka in their recent projects are Information Technology (100%), Product Development (92%), and Quality Assurance (57%).

Main locations of FRATCH Experts, who have recently used Apache Kafka

Our freelancers and interim experts are at home all over Germany — available on-site in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and every major business hub, or fully remote. Choose a city to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.

In Austria our freelancers and interim experts support companies from Vienna to Graz — on-site where your project needs them, or fully remote. Choose a city to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.

Across Switzerland our specialists are active in Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern — working on-site or fully remote. Choose a city to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.

Zurich Geneva Basel Bern

Countries:

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