Classloader issues with Kafka Connector and Remote Executor (Apache Flink) - apache-flink

Question

When trying to execute a Flink job on a remote cluster, i keep getting the same ClassLoader exception.
org.apache.flink.streaming.runtime.tasks.StreamTaskException: Cannot load user class: org.apache.flink.streaming.connectors.kafka.FlinkKafkaConsumer09
ClassLoader info: URL ClassLoader:
Class not resolvable through given classloader.
at org.apache.flink.streaming.api.graph.StreamConfig.getStreamOperator(StreamConfig.java:207)
at org.apache.flink.streaming.runtime.tasks.StreamTask.invoke(StreamTask.java:223)
at org.apache.flink.runtime.taskmanager.Task.run(Task.java:584)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
10/07/2016 06:34:57 Job execution switched to status FAILING.
I am packaging my jar using the maven-shade plugin and this class is definetely packaged with the jar, as can be seen when I look inside my jar.
$:jar -tf MyJar.jar |grep "org.apache.flink.streaming.connectors.kafka.FlinkKafkaConsumer"
org/apache/flink/streaming/connectors/kafka/FlinkKafkaConsumer09.class
org/apache/flink/streaming/connectors/kafka/FlinkKafkaConsumerBase.class
Here's my pom.xml
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.flink</groupId>
<artifactId>flink-java</artifactId>
<version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.flink</groupId>
<artifactId>flink-streaming-java_2.10</artifactId>
<version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.flink</groupId>
<artifactId>flink-clients_2.10</artifactId>
<version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.flink</groupId>
<artifactId>flink-connector-kafka-0.9_2.10</artifactId>
<version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.5</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>shade</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<finalName>FloorData</finalName>
<shadeTestJar>false</shadeTestJar>
<shadedArtifactAttached>false</shadedArtifactAttached>
<createDependencyReducedPom>false</createDependencyReducedPom>
<transformers>
<transformer implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.AppendingTransformer">
<resource>reference.conf</resource>
</transformer>
<transformer implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ManifestResourceTransformer">
<mainClass>floordata.cli.launcher.FlinkLauncher</mainClass>
</transformer>
</transformers>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
I am configuring my remote environment as follows in my code. I am not sure if this is correct, but do I need to specify the location of the kafka connector as an argument to createRemoteEnvironment??
InetSocketAddress address = parseHostPortAddress((String) configuration.get(FLINK_JOB_MANAGER_ADDRESS));
StreamExecutionEnvironment.createRemoteEnvironment(address.getHostName(), address.getPort());