Learn about deploying Kafka at scale with limited resources in this SREcon19 Americas conference talk. Explore the challenges and solutions of managing a complex distributed system like Kafka with a small team while experiencing rapid business growth. Discover tactical approaches to overcoming obstacles, including handling executive demands, product manager experiments, and application engineer visibility needs. Gain insights into engineering tradeoffs, technical debt management, and library overhaul strategies. Follow one engineer's journey from failures to successes in conquering Kafka, offering valuable lessons for teams facing similar distributed system challenges.