Study Plan for Apache Kafka and Spring Boot

Technical Interview
Version 1.
June 27, 2025
By Sergey Kargopolov

Study materials

A good video course that will explain most of these topics in a beginner-friendly manner:
Apache Kafka for Spring Boot Microservices​
​
A free e-book to learn how to write integration tests for basic Kafka Producer and Kafka
Consumer Spring Boot applications: Apache Kafka Integration Testing.

Getting Started with Kafka

Understanding Apache Kafka

Study the following topics to prepare for interview questions on Apache Kafka:

●​ Kafka’s Purpose and Architecture: Understand Kafka as a distributed event streaming

platform for real-time data pipelines, focusing on its high-throughput and low-latency
capabilities.
●​ KRaft Metadata Management: Learn how KRaft replaces ZooKeeper in Kafka 4.0.0 for
metadata management, including its benefits for cluster simplicity and scalability.
●​ Key Features of Kafka 4.0.0: Study new features and improvements in Kafka 4.0.0,
such as enhanced scalability, reduced operational complexity, and KRaft-based cluster
management.
●​ Use Cases: Explore common use cases for Kafka, including log aggregation, event
sourcing, and real-time analytics, to discuss its applicability in various scenarios.
●​ Comparison with Other Messaging Systems: Understand how Kafka differs from
systems like RabbitMQ or ActiveMQ in terms of design, scalability, and data retention.

Core Components of Kafka

Study the following topics to prepare for interview questions on Kafka’s core components:

●​ Brokers: Learn the role of brokers in storing and managing data, including their
responsibilities in handling client requests and data replication.
 ●​ Topics and Partitions: Understand how topics categorize messages and how partitions
enable parallel processing and scalability within topics.
●​ Replicas and Leader-Follower Model: Study the replication mechanism, including the
roles of leader and follower replicas, and how they ensure fault tolerance and durability.
●​ KRaft in Component Management: Learn how KRaft manages metadata for brokers,
topics, and partitions in Kafka 4.0.0, replacing ZooKeeper’s role.
●​ Consumer Groups and Offset Management: Understand how consumer groups
distribute partition processing and how offsets track consumer progress within partitions.

Key Concepts in Kafka

Understand Kafka’s fundamental components: topics categorize messages, partitions split
topics for scalability, offsets track message positions within partitions, and consumer groups
enable distributed consumption. Each partition is assigned to a single consumer within a group,
even across multiple topics. Learn delivery semantics—at-most-once, at-least-once, and
exactly-once (requiring transactional setup)—and the role of idempotent producers in ensuring
reliable message delivery.

Message Keys and Ordering

Message keys determine the partition to which a message is sent. Kafka guarantees message
ordering only within a partition. Using consistent keys ensures related messages remain in
sequence, critical for event-driven applications.

Using Kafka with Spring Boot

Introduction to Spring Kafka

Spring Kafka simplifies Kafka integration in Spring Boot by providing abstractions like
KafkaTemplate and @KafkaListener, reducing boilerplate code. Include the spring-kafka
dependency in your project to leverage these features.

Configuring Kafka in Spring Boot

Set up Kafka in Spring Boot using [Link] or [Link]. Configure essential
properties such as bootstrap servers, serializers/deserializers (e.g., JSON or Avro), group IDs,
timeouts, retries, and security settings. Understand the impact of each configuration for reliable
integration.

Producing Messages with KafkaTemplate

Use KafkaTemplate to send messages synchronously or asynchronously. Implement REST
endpoints with @RestController to trigger message production. Configure partitioning and keys
for ordering, and handle callbacks to verify successful delivery, ensuring compatibility with Kafka
features.

Consuming Messages with @KafkaListener

Annotate methods with @KafkaListener to consume messages from specified topics. Configure
deserialization to process message payloads and manage concurrency for parallel
consumption. Kafka ’s cooperative rebalancing (KIP-848) enhances consumer group stability,
reducing rebalance disruptions.

Error Handling in Kafka Consumers

Implement error handling using manual acknowledgments or DefaultErrorHandler with
DeadLetterPublishingRecoverer to route failed messages to dead-letter topics. Configure retry
policies for transient errors, ensuring compatibility with Kafka .

Transactional Processing in Kafka

Kafka supports transactions for atomic operations across producers and consumers. Spring
Kafka simplifies transactional setup with KafkaTemplate and @KafkaListener. Understand
transactional enhancements in Kafka for consistent data processing.

Building Event-Driven Systems with Kafka

Event-Driven Architecture Overview

Event-driven architecture enables asynchronous communication between microservices via
events, enhancing scalability and resilience. Kafka supports this with high-throughput, reliable
event streaming.

System Design with Kafka

Design systems using Kafka for event sourcing, CQRS, or microservice communication. Use
KafkaTemplate for publishing events and @KafkaListener for consumption, avoiding direct
service calls. Explore Queues for Kafka (an early access feature in ) using share groups for
queue-like message processing.

Dynamic Topic Usage

Route messages to different topics based on business logic, such as user type or region,
supporting multi-tenant systems or dynamic event routing.
Managing Slow Consumers and Lag
Monitor consumer lag using tools like Kafka Manager or Prometheus. Optimize timeouts and
concurrency in Spring Kafka to reduce lag. Understand cooperative rebalancing in Kafka to
minimize rebalance impact and improve consumer performance.

Deeper into Kafka

Kafka Streams Fundamentals

Kafka Streams is a library for real-time stream processing, enabling operations like joins, filters,
and aggregations. Explore its enhancements in Kafka for building responsive applications.

Kafka Connect Overview

Kafka Connect facilitates data movement between Kafka and external systems (e.g., databases,
cloud storage) using connectors. Investigate new connectors or updates in Kafka for seamless
integration.

Performance Optimization in Kafka

Optimize Kafka performance by tuning batch size, [Link], compression, and fetch settings.
Monitor clusters with tools like Kafka Manager or Prometheus, leveraging KRaft for efficient
management in Kafka .

Securing Kafka
Implement security with SASL authentication, SSL encryption, and ACLs for topic access
control. Explore new security features in Kafka to ensure robust protection in production
environments.

Message Encryption
Encrypt sensitive payloads before sending and decrypt upon receipt, using tools like Vault for
key management to secure data in transit.

Production Deployment of Kafka

Plan cluster sizing, hardware selection, and data backup strategies. Kafka’s replication ensures
fault tolerance by promoting follower replicas to leaders during broker failures. Scale clusters
with KRaft and adjust partition counts for parallel consumer processing.

KRaft in Kafka
KRaft replaces ZooKeeper for metadata management, offering simpler setup and better
scalability. Understand its configuration and operational benefits in Kafka clusters.
Queues in Kafka
Queues for Kafka, an early access feature in Kafka, uses share groups for queue-like message
distribution, allowing individual message acknowledgments, distinct from consumer group
behavior.

Consumer Lag and Group Rebalancing

Monitor consumer lag to detect processing delays. Use cooperative rebalancing (KIP-848) in
Kafka to reduce rebalance time and improve consumer group stability. Adjust timeouts and
concurrency to mitigate lag.

Practical Tasks to Practice

To prepare for the interview, complete these hands-on tasks:
●​ Develop a Spring Boot application with REST endpoints using @RestController to send
Kafka messages.
●​ Configure @KafkaListener to consume messages from a topic.
●​ Define a NewTopic bean with custom partitions and replication settings.
●​ Implement Avro serialization with Schema Registry.
●​ Set up transactional producer and consumer workflows.
●​ Configure error handling with dead-letter topics for failed messages.
●​ Route messages to different topics based on payload data (e.g., user type or region).
●​ Practice answering system design questions on retries, ordering, lag, and delivery
guarantees.
●​ Debug producer or consumer issues using logs and offset tracking.

Integration Testing for Kafka in Spring Boot

Study the following topics to prepare for interview questions on integration testing of Apache
Kafka-based Spring Boot applications:

●​ Understand the roles of spring-boot-starter-test and spring-kafka-test dependencies for

enabling unit and integration testing, including JUnit, Mockito, and embedded Kafka
utilities.
●​ Learn the @EmbeddedKafka annotation for setting up an in-memory Kafka broker,
including configuration options like partitions, broker count, and controlled shutdown for
realistic test environments.
●​ Study annotations like @SpringBootTest, @ActiveProfiles, @DirtiesContext, and
@TestInstance for managing application context, test-specific configurations, and test
lifecycle in integration tests.
●​ Understand the AAA pattern for structuring integration tests, covering setup of test data,
execution of the system under test, and verification of outcomes.
●​ Learn to verify producer functionality, including message sending to topics, key
assignment, and header inclusion, ensuring correct configuration and delivery
semantics.
●​ Study idempotent producer configurations ([Link], acks, retries) and how
to validate them to ensure duplicate-free message delivery.
●​ Understand testing consumer behavior, including message consumption, deserialization,
and header processing, to confirm correct handling of incoming events.
●​ Learn to configure test consumers with properties like bootstrap servers, group IDs, and
deserializers, using [Link] for isolation.
●​ Study testing error handling mechanisms, such as retry policies and dead-letter topic
routing, to validate robust consumer behavior.
●​ Understand techniques to verify message payloads and headers in tests, ensuring data
integrity and correct processing.
●​ Learn methods to execute tests (e.g., via IDE or Maven) and debug issues using logs,
offset tracking, and partition assignment verification.