Jonathan French

Operations Associate

Johnson City, Tennessee, United States18 yrs 1 mo experience

Highly Stable

Key Highlights

Expert in troubleshooting Kafka and distributed systems.
Proven track record of improving manufacturing yields.
Strong background in Linux and cloud-native services.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Technical Support Engineer specializing in distributed systems and manufacturing processes.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Apache KafkaLinuxProcess ImprovementData AnalysisMaterial DevelopmentVendor ManagementLab Testing

Other Skills

Kafka ConnectMySQLCloud InfrastructureDebugging & Incident ResponseLean ManufacturingAutomationMachine OperationEngineeringMaterialsJMPR&DSix SigmaPolymer ScienceManufacturingProcess Engineering

About

Technical Support Engineer with a strong systems and infrastructure focus, specializing in distributed platforms and production troubleshooting. Daily work centers around Linux-based environments, Apache Kafka, Kafka Connect, MySQL, and cloud-native services, supporting complex customer deployments and resolving real-world operational issues. Hands-on experience diagnosing Kafka broker behavior, consumer/producer issues, connector failures, schema and serialization problems, and performance bottlenecks across on-prem and cloud environments. Comfortable working at the CLI, reading logs, analyzing configurations, and tracing failures across multi-service architectures. Strong background in Linux administration, networking fundamentals, JVM-based systems, and data pipelines. Regularly work with MySQL for data validation, debugging connector sinks/sources, and investigating consistency or throughput issues. Experienced with Google Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Storage) as part of mobile and backend application development, including security rules, data modeling, and real-time updates. Known for clear technical communication, structured troubleshooting, and bridging the gap between customer use cases and platform behavior. Comfortable collaborating with engineering teams, reproducing issues, and translating complex system behavior into actionable guidance. Core technologies: Apache Kafka · Kafka Connect · Linux · MySQL · JVM · Distributed Systems · Networking · Google Firebase · Firestore · Cloud Infrastructure · Debugging & Incident Response

Experience

18 yrs 1 mo

Total Experience

5 yrs 5 mos

Average Tenure

3 yrs 5 mos

Current Experience

Confluent

Technical Support Engineer

Dec 2022 – Present · 3 yrs 5 mos

Apache KafkaKafka ConnectLinuxMySQLCloud InfrastructureDebugging & Incident Response

Osisoft

2 roles

Product Specialist

Feb 2018 – Dec 2022 · 4 yrs 10 mos · Johnson City, Tennessee Area

Product Support Engineer

Feb 2018 – Dec 2022 · 4 yrs 10 mos · Johnson City, Tennessee Area

Kimberly-clark

5 roles

Process Engineer

Apr 2014 – Feb 2018 · 3 yrs 10 mos

Resolved process upsets for multiple assets to maximize results for yield, uptime, rate, OEE, and quality.
Within first 8 months significantly improved yield from 80% to > 90%.
Led DOEs, Kaizens, 4SPS, measurement system analysis (Gage R&R), capability studies, data analysis including hypothesis testing.

Process ImprovementData AnalysisLean Manufacturing

Project Scientist

Aug 2013 – Jan 2014 · 5 mos

•US material owner of Adult Care materials - Resolved crises in the US for sourcing, manufacturing, supply of non-woven materials, and coordinated and informed the customers.

Coop Process Engineer in Paper Mill

May 2012 – Dec 2012 · 7 mos

Direct contact with vendors for machine upgrade of a new spray boom that decreased maintenance due to clogged spray nozzles.
Utilized visual basic for Excel to automate daily (created automatic Excel based SPC charting) and weekly tasks (waterfall charts).
Led waste studies comparing actual machine waste verse calculated machine waste to identify where the waste was coming from.
Learned foundation principles for LEAN Manufacturing.

Vendor ManagementAutomation

Scientist

Dec 2011 – Aug 2013 · 1 yr 8 mos

Material developer for an exfoliating facial pad. Led DOEs pilot trials to create a four layer exfoliating pad.
Material developer for the elastic side panel for the international diaper pant. Resolved sourcing issues with vendors. Conducted internal and external manufacturing trials in the US and in Santa Clara, Peru. Supported the commercialization in Peru for both the side panel and the finish diaper pant. Identified key material properties in the components that affect overall side panel. Utilized JMP to analyze data from trials to make decisions for raw materials.

Material DevelopmentData Analysis

Coop

Jan 2010 – Aug 2010 · 7 mos · Roswell, GA

Led and supported pilot and commercial sized trials for development of an elastic side panels for.
Removed waste by creating VBA macro for excel which imported lab data automatic vs previously manual recording data (>90% time reduction).
Responsible for lab testing for samples ran in the trials.

Lab TestingMachine Operation