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AI skills glossary · Data platform

Apache Kafka

A distributed event-streaming platform for moving large volumes of data between systems in real time.

Hiring data as of November 14, 2026, refreshed daily. All terms in the AI skills glossary

companies naming it
9 of 47companies naming it
open roles naming it
32open roles naming it
of those based in NYC
16of those based in NYC
median posted base (n=11)
$231kmedian posted base (n=11)

What Apache Kafka means

Kafka is a durable, high-throughput log that systems publish events to and read events from. It underpins real-time data pipelines, event-driven architectures, and the streaming features that feed fraud, pricing, and recommendation models.

Apache Kafka in New York job posts

9 of the 47 New York AI companies we track name Apache Kafka in at least one open role today, across 32 postings. 16 of those are based in New York; the rest are remote or in the companies’ other offices.

This is engineering vocabulary: 81% of the postings that name it are Engineering roles.

How to read it

A backend and data-infrastructure term that shows up at the fintech and marketplace end of New York’s AI companies, where decisions are made on live events. It marks senior backend roles more than AI-specific ones.

What these roles pay

$203k25th percentile
$231kMedian
$255k75th percentile

Midpoints of 11 distinct salary ranges posted on New York roles that name Apache Kafka. Base salary only; on-target earnings are excluded, and a range repeated across one company’s postings counts once. For comparison, the median across all New York engineering postings is $215k. A term’s pay reflects the roles that name it as much as the skill itself — see the role mix below before reading a premium into it. Full bands by function and seniority are in the NYC salary calculator.

Companies naming Apache Kafka, daily

Count of companies with at least one open role naming the term. We read between 46 and 48 companies a day over this period, so a move of one or two is noise.

07.5159Aug 17Nov 14Aug 17: 11 companiesAug 18: 10 companiesAug 19: 10 companiesAug 20: 10 companiesAug 21: 10 companiesAug 22: 10 companiesAug 23: 10 companiesAug 24: 10 companiesAug 25: 10 companiesAug 26: 10 companiesAug 27: 10 companiesAug 28: 10 companiesAug 29: 10 companiesAug 30: 10 companiesAug 31: 10 companiesSep 1: 10 companiesSep 2: 11 companiesSep 3: 10 companiesSep 4: 10 companiesSep 5: 10 companiesSep 6: 10 companiesSep 7: 10 companiesSep 8: 10 companiesSep 9: 11 companiesSep 10: 11 companiesSep 11: 11 companiesSep 12: 11 companiesSep 13: 11 companiesSep 14: 11 companiesSep 15: 11 companiesSep 16: 11 companiesSep 17: 10 companiesSep 18: 10 companiesSep 19: 10 companiesSep 20: 10 companiesSep 21: 10 companiesSep 22: 10 companiesSep 23: 10 companiesSep 24: 10 companiesSep 25: 10 companiesSep 26: 10 companiesSep 27: 10 companiesSep 28: 10 companiesSep 29: 10 companiesSep 30: 10 companiesOct 1: 10 companiesOct 2: 10 companiesOct 3: 10 companiesOct 4: 10 companiesOct 5: 10 companiesOct 6: 10 companiesOct 7: 10 companiesOct 8: 9 companiesOct 9: 9 companiesOct 10: 9 companiesOct 11: 9 companiesOct 12: 9 companiesOct 13: 9 companiesOct 14: 9 companiesOct 15: 9 companiesOct 16: 9 companiesOct 17: 9 companiesOct 18: 9 companiesOct 19: 9 companiesOct 20: 9 companiesOct 21: 9 companiesOct 22: 10 companiesOct 23: 10 companiesOct 24: 10 companiesOct 25: 10 companiesOct 26: 10 companiesOct 27: 10 companiesOct 28: 10 companiesOct 29: 10 companiesOct 30: 10 companiesOct 31: 10 companiesNov 1: 10 companiesNov 2: 10 companiesNov 3: 10 companiesNov 4: 11 companiesNov 5: 11 companiesNov 6: 10 companiesNov 7: 10 companiesNov 8: 10 companiesNov 9: 11 companiesNov 10: 9 companiesNov 11: 9 companiesNov 12: 9 companiesNov 13: 9 companiesNov 14: 9 companies
View as table
Datecompanies
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2026-08-2010
2026-08-2110
2026-08-2210
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2026-08-2610
2026-08-2710
2026-08-2810
2026-08-2910
2026-08-3010
2026-08-3110
2026-09-0110
2026-09-0211
2026-09-0310
2026-09-0410
2026-09-0510
2026-09-0610
2026-09-0710
2026-09-0810
2026-09-0911
2026-09-1011
2026-09-1111
2026-09-1211
2026-09-1311
2026-09-1411
2026-09-1511
2026-09-1611
2026-09-1710
2026-09-1810
2026-09-1910
2026-09-2010
2026-09-2110
2026-09-2210
2026-09-2310
2026-09-2410
2026-09-2510
2026-09-2610
2026-09-2710
2026-09-2810
2026-09-2910
2026-09-3010
2026-10-0110
2026-10-0210
2026-10-0310
2026-10-0410
2026-10-0510
2026-10-0610
2026-10-0710
2026-10-089
2026-10-099
2026-10-109
2026-10-119
2026-10-129
2026-10-139
2026-10-149
2026-10-159
2026-10-169
2026-10-179
2026-10-189
2026-10-199
2026-10-209
2026-10-219
2026-10-2210
2026-10-2310
2026-10-2410
2026-10-2510
2026-10-2610
2026-10-2710
2026-10-2810
2026-10-2910
2026-10-3010
2026-10-3110
2026-11-0110
2026-11-0210
2026-11-0310
2026-11-0411
2026-11-0511
2026-11-0610
2026-11-0710
2026-11-0810
2026-11-0911
2026-11-109
2026-11-119
2026-11-129
2026-11-139
2026-11-149

Who names it

Open roles naming Apache Kafka, by company.

  • Headway10
  • AlphaSense9
  • Hebbia4
  • Invisible Technologies4
  • Attentive1
  • EvolutionIQ1
  • Pinecone1
  • Ramp1
  • Tabs1

Which roles

The same postings, by function and by seniority.

  • Engineering26
  • GTM5
  • Other1
  • Mid12
  • Staff/Principal10
  • Senior7
  • Manager3

Named alongside Apache Kafka

Terms that appear in the same postings far more often than chance would put them there. The number is how many of the 9 companies pair the two.

Open roles naming Apache Kafka

A sample from today’s data, New York roles first and one per company before any repeats. Links go to the employer’s own posting. For the full market, see AI jobs in NYC.

How this is counted

Every day we read the open roles on the public job boards of the New York AI companies in our coverage — the NYC AI 100 and the AI in NYC Show roster. This term is matched against each role’s description after removing the text a company repeats across its postings, so an “About us” paragraph cannot tag every role the company has open. A vendor’s own postings never count toward its own name.

The figure means named in a job posting. It does not mean used in production, and a “nice to have” counts the same as a requirement. Companies are the headline number because posting counts are dominated by whichever few employers are hiring hardest this month.

Full method, including the pay rules, is on the glossary index; the underlying series is the NYC AI Hiring Index.

Apache Kafka: common questions

What does Apache Kafka mean in an AI job posting?

A distributed event-streaming platform for moving large volumes of data between systems in real time. A backend and data-infrastructure term that shows up at the fintech and marketplace end of New York’s AI companies, where decisions are made on live events. It marks senior backend roles more than AI-specific ones.

How many New York AI companies are hiring for Apache Kafka?

As of November 14, 2026, 9 of the 47 New York AI companies we track name Apache Kafka in the description of at least one open role, across 32 postings (16 based in New York). The count refreshes daily from the companies’ own job boards.

What do roles that ask for Apache Kafka pay in New York?

Across 11 distinct posted salary ranges on New York roles naming Apache Kafka, the median midpoint is $231k base, with the middle half between $203k and $255k. The same figure for all New York engineering postings is $215k. These are employer-posted ranges required by New York’s pay transparency law, base salary only.

Which skills are asked for alongside Apache Kafka?

In the same postings, the terms most distinctively paired with Apache Kafka are Hugging Face, TensorFlow, Elasticsearch, Vector search, Java. We rank pairings by how much more often they appear together than apart, so near-universal terms such as Python do not crowd out the informative ones.

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