Principal Engineer – Database, SRE, & Cloud Security

Company Background: Genuine Parts Company (“GPC” or the “Company”), founded in 1928 and based in Atlanta, Georgia, is a leading distributor of automotive and industrial replacement parts and value-added services. The Company operates a global portfolio of businesses with more than 10,000 locations across the world. GPC has approximately 50,000 global employees. The Company has operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, France, the U.K., Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and China.

Position Purpose: Seeking world-class talent to join the world’s leading distributor of automotive and industrial replacement parts and value-added services operating 5,500+ locations and servicing more than 20,000 locations in the U.S and Canada. This individual must be a network technologist & engineer at heart and be comfortable in defining the technology direction and being hands-on with the execution of the strategy. She/He must exhibit a deep understanding of modern technology stack and agile delivery models, demonstrated focus on emerging technologies, including cloud-based solutions, and must have a proven track record of modernizing complex networking infrastructures at scale. Close collaboration and alignment with a wide variety of both internal stakeholders and external vendors will be required. As such, exceptional abilities in building and maintaining strong working relationships will be required. High-level communication, expert level technical acumen, and project oversight skills are ideal. The Principal Engineer is ultimately responsible for shepherding a project team, contributing to the solution design, providing assistance with configuration development, and ensuring efficient and precise deployment within the complex GPC Enterprise Network environment.

The engineering process is highly collaborative. In addition to pairing, Principal Engineers field questions from other teams and organizations, encourage cross-team collaboration, and serve as the Subject Matter Expert for all Network related inquiries. They also play an active role working with 3rd party vendors as well as the open-source community. Principal Engineers create foundational processes and technical focus that aligns with the forward-looking GPC communications and connectivity strategy. The Principal Engineer will also be responsible for the organization, presentation, and remediation of network architectural diagrams and other solution-related documentation. In addition, Principal Network Engineers will be involved in solution configuration, performance tuning and testing as well as production monitoring. As Principal Engineer, you will be the technology Subject Matter Expert within the GPC Network Engineering Team and are expected to build and grow the skillsets of the more junior engineers and collaborate with Network Engineering Team management to devise and deliver unique and innovative networking solutions that optimize GPC’s products, applications, and service offerings.

Major Tasks, Responsibilities And Key Accountabilities

~40% Execution & 30% Engineering Leadership:

• Collaborates and pairs with other network and product/application team members to deliver secure, reliable, and scalable network solutions.
• Develops comprehensive processes and procedures geared to the sustainment of the GPC network.
• Delivers technology solutions and recommendations providing high reliability and resiliency in the networking environment.
• Performs as the GPC Network Team Subject Matter Expert with all solutions and architectures deployed within the network.
• Collaborates with the Network Team management group to efficiently deliver new and innovative solutions to GPC networking.
• Provides mentoring and technical oversight to the GPC Engineering Team during solution delivery and configuration.
• Creates meaningful architecture diagrams and other documentation essential to the operation and management of the GPC Network.

~20% – Support & Enablement:

• Fields questions and inquiries concerning the GPC Network from other entities throughout the company.
• Collaborates with the Network Support team for the efficient and effective resolution of issues encountered within the network.
• Oversees and implements architectural modifications and improvements to the network environment.
• Works with vendors to help identify and implement solutions and capabilities essential to the GPC service offering.
• Proactively reviews the Engineering Team skillsets, capabilities, and performance in the network and provides recommendations for improvements.
• Triages high priority issues and outages as they arise.

~10% – Learning:

• Moderates and manages Network Team development activities including cross-functionality training, mentoring, and general strategy discussions.
• Learns, through reading, tutorials, and videos, new technologies and best practices being used within other technology organizations.
• Attends conferences and learns how to apply new technologies where appropriate.

Desired Qualifications & Experiences:

• 7-10+ years continued experience with Network Engineering and Support.
• Consistent track record of teamwork, and delivering high impact results.
• Experience with public cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Strong communication skills.
• Network Certifications (Cisco CCIE, AWS Solutions Architect, Azure, etc.).
• Specific Experience with the following solutions and technologies:
• Cisco Routing and Switching Solutions – (WAN, LAN, ACI).
• Cisco Security Solutions – (ASA, Umbrella, FTD).
• Cisco Meraki Wireless Solutions.
• Fortinet Firewall Solutions – (VPN, Virtual Appliances, Firewalls).
• Load Balancing Solutions and techniques – (F5, VMWare Avi, I-Rules).
• Automation and Scripting – (Ansible, API, Python, JSON).

GPC conducts its business without regard to sex, race, creed, color, religion, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, age, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, military status, status as a veteran, or any other protected characteristic. GPC's policy is to recruit, hire, train, promote, assign, transfer and terminate employees based on their own ability, achievement, experience and conduct and other legitimate business reasons.