Principal System Engineer

Compensation Pay Range:

The actual hourly rate will equal or exceed the required minimum wage applicable to the job location.  Additional compensation includes annual, quarterly performance, or premiums may be paid in amounts ranging per hour in specific circumstances. Premiums may be based on schedule, facility, season, or specific work performed. Multiple premiums may apply if applicable criteria are met.

A Principal Systems Engineer will utilize expert-level infrastructure, cloud architecture, and systems design knowledge to lead the evolution of cloud-native platforms and enterprise infrastructure. This position demands a high degree of technical leadership, operational foresight, and systems thinking. The ideal candidate has deep hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), automation frameworks, and highly available distributed systems.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

• Maintain expert-level knowledge of emerging GCP services, infrastructure design patterns, automation tooling, and site reliability engineering practices.

• Provide architectural guidance and technical mentorship to engineers across infrastructure, DevOps, and platform teams.

• Collaborate with Cloud Architects and Engineering Leadership to define standards for GCP resource hierarchy, networking, security, and cost optimization.

• Lead the design, deployment, and automation of scalable, resilient infrastructure on GCP, using tools such as Terraform, Kubernetes (GKE), and Cloud Build.

• Guide enterprise-wide initiatives focused on infrastructure modernization, cloud migration, and zero-downtime operations.

• Implement best-in-class monitoring, logging, and observability practices using Stackdriver, Prometheus, and third-party integrations.

• Conduct design reviews, evaluate new services, and ensure infrastructure solutions align with performance, security, and compliance requirements.

• Lead incident response and root cause analysis for infrastructure-impacting events, driving long-term stability improvements.

• Define and enforce GCP IAM policies, network segmentation, org policies, and workload identity federation strategies.

• Work closely with application and data engineering teams to optimize cloud deployments, container orchestration, and API gateways.

• Own the infrastructure-as-code lifecycle, enabling consistent, version-controlled deployments across environments.

• Contribute to technical roadmaps, budgeting forecasts, and capacity planning processes.

• Document architectural decisions, cloud resource inventories, and runbooks for critical platform services.

• Champion cloud-native best practices, DevSecOps principles, and efficient operational processes.

Preferred Experience & Qualifications:

• 10+ years of infrastructure or systems engineering experience, with 3+ years in a Principal or Lead role.

• Proven hands-on expertise with GCP core services including VPC, GKE, Pub/Sub, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, IAM, Cloud SQL, and BigQuery.

• Deep understanding of Terraform, CI/CD pipelines (Cloud Build, GitHub Actions, or Jenkins), and container orchestration (Kubernetes).

• Experience designing and supporting resilient, high-throughput distributed systems.

• Strong background in Linux systems engineering, networking, and scripting (Python, Bash, or Go).

• Familiarity with DevOps and SRE practices including monitoring, SLOs/SLIs, chaos testing, and auto-remediation.

• Experience with multi-region, hybrid cloud, or enterprise-wide cloud migration strategies.

• Effective communicator with the ability to influence cross-functional teams and senior leadership.

• Relevant GCP certifications (e.g., Professional Cloud Architect, Professional DevOps Engineer) strongly preferred.

O’Reilly Auto Parts has a proven track record of growth and stability. O’Reilly is full of successful career stories and believes in a strong promote-from-within philosophy, encouraging you to grow your career along with the organization. 

Total Compensation Package:

• Competitive Wages & Paid Time Off

• Stock Purchase Plan & 401k with Employer Contributions Starting Day One

• Medical, Dental, & Vision Insurance with Optional Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

• Team Member Health/Wellbeing Programs

• Tuition Educational Assistance Programs

• Opportunities for Career Growth

O’Reilly Auto Parts is an equal opportunity employer. The Company does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry (including immigration status or citizenship), sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation, and related medical conditions,) age (40 and over), veteran status, uniformed service member status, physical or mental disability, genetic information (including testing or characteristics) or another protected status as defined by local, state, or federal law, as applicable.

Qualified individuals with a disability may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application or employment process, please send an email to: rar@oreillyauto.com or call 417-862-2674, ext. 68901, and provide your requested accommodation, and position details.