The Systems Engineer Platform – Messaging Platform will play a key role in designing, implementing, and maintaining enterprise messaging systems that support both real-time and asynchronous communication between distributed applications and services. This role focuses on ensuring robust, scalable, secure, and cost-efficient messaging solutions across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments. The engineer will work closely with architects, developers, infrastructure, and DevOps teams to standardize messaging platforms and promote modern integration patterns that align with the organization’s digital transformation goals.
This is an on-site position located in Springfield, MO.
Responsibilities and Duties:
Messaging Platform Engineering
Design and operate scalable messaging platforms (Kafka, Pub/Sub, legacy MQ) supporting high-throughput, low-latency event streaming. Manage topics, schemas (Avro/JSON/Protobuf), connectors, and stream processing (Kafka Streams/KSQLDB). Enforce governance for naming, retention, access control, and multi-tenancy, while ensuring reliable delivery (retries, DLQs, idempotency, exactly-once).
Infrastructure as Code & Automation
Automate messaging infrastructure using Terraform, Helm, and Kubernetes (e.g., Strimzi), with Git-based configuration management. Build CI/CD pipelines for deployments, upgrades, and topic provisioning, including drift detection and self-healing workflows.
Security & Governance
Implement secure messaging with IAM integration (GCP, LDAP, Kerberos), TLS/mTLS, and ACLs. Align with compliance standards (PCI, HIPAA) and Zero Trust principles, including data classification, logging, and anomaly detection.
Monitoring & Reliability
Establish observability using Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or GCP tools. Monitor SLAs/SLOs, consumer lag, broker health, and replication. Lead incident response, RCA, and disaster recovery planning.
Integration & Developer Enablement
Enable teams with reusable connectors, SDKs, and event-driven patterns. Provide guidance on schema evolution, idempotency, and domain-driven event design, supported by self-service tools and documentation.
Platform Modernization & Migration
Drive migration from legacy systems to modern streaming platforms, evaluating new technologies (e.g., Pulsar, Redpanda). Lead migration strategies, dual-write patterns, and multi-region replication.
Collaboration & Leadership
Collaborate with cross-functional teams on architecture and governance, contribute to event-driven and data mesh strategies, and mentor engineers while promoting best practices.
Skills:
Required:
- 3+ years with enterprise messaging platforms (Kafka, Pub/Sub), including deep knowledge of Kafka architecture (brokers, partitions, replication, schema management, streams, and connectors).
- Strong experience designing high-throughput, low-latency event-driven systems with governance, topic management, and access control.
- Hands-on experience with GCP messaging services (Pub/Sub, Eventarc) and hybrid architectures, including secure connectivity, IAM, and multi-region designs.
- Proficiency in Infrastructure as Code and automation using Terraform, Kubernetes/Helm, and CI/CD tools, with GitOps-based configuration management.
- Solid background in security and compliance, including encryption (TLS/mTLS), authentication (SASL, IAM), and regulatory standards (PCI, SOC2, HIPAA).
- Experience implementing observability with Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and GCP tools, including monitoring lag, throughput, and distributed tracing.
- Strong performance tuning and reliability practices, including scaling, backpressure handling, DLQs, retries, and cross-region replication.
- Focus on developer enablement through reusable tools, self-service platforms, schema governance, and event-driven best practices.
- Ability to evaluate and prototype messaging technologies (e.g., Pulsar, RabbitMQ), lead POCs, and drive adoption of modern streaming and data integration patterns.
Desired:
- Experience running Kafka on Kubernetes (Strimzi/Confluent Operator), including scaling, configuration, and multi-tenant architectures.
- Strong foundation in event-driven architecture, microservices communication, and asynchronous messaging patterns.
- Hands-on experience with real-time processing tools (Kafka Streams, Flink, Spark) and Kafka Connect integrations (Debezium, JDBC, Elasticsearch).
- Proficiency in schema management (Avro, Protobuf) and schema registries (Confluent, Apicurio).
- Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes (GKE), and service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd) for secure, cloud-native deployments.
- Experience with cloud messaging and analytics tools (GCP Pub/Sub, Dataflow) and migrating from legacy systems (e.g., IBM MQ, RabbitMQ).
- Strong knowledge of security and access control (ACLs, SASL/SCRAM, Kerberos, IAM) and message delivery semantics (at-least-once, exactly-once).
- Experience with observability (Prometheus, Grafana, GCP Monitoring), CI/CD automation for Kafka resources, and data governance tools (Dataplex, Collibra).
- Industry experience, certifications, and ability to lead design discussions, mentor teams, and work within agile environments.
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: [email protected] or call (800) 471-7431 option , and provide your requested accommodation, and position details.
Skills Required
- 3+ years of experience with enterprise messaging platforms, including Kafka and Pub/Sub, with deep knowledge of Kafka architecture, partitions, replication, schemas, streams, and connectors.
- Experience designing high-throughput, low-latency event-driven systems with governance, topic management, and access control.
- Hands-on experience with GCP Pub/Sub, Eventarc, hybrid architectures, secure connectivity, IAM, and multi-region designs.
- Proficiency with Terraform, Kubernetes, Helm, CI/CD tools, and GitOps-based configuration management.
- Experience with TLS/mTLS, SASL, IAM, encryption, authentication, and PCI, SOC 2, and HIPAA compliance standards.
- Experience implementing observability with Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and GCP tools, including monitoring lag, throughput, and distributed tracing.
- Experience with performance tuning, scaling, backpressure handling, dead-letter queues, retries, and cross-region replication.
- Experience developing reusable tools and self-service platforms, schema governance, and event-driven best practices.
- Ability to evaluate and prototype messaging technologies, lead proofs of concept, and drive adoption of modern streaming and data integration patterns.
- Experience running Kafka on Kubernetes using Strimzi or Confluent Operator, including scaling, configuration, and multi-tenant architectures.
- Strong foundation in event-driven architecture, microservices communication, and asynchronous messaging patterns.
- Experience with Kafka Streams, Flink, Spark, Kafka Connect, Debezium, JDBC, and Elasticsearch integrations.
- Proficiency with Avro, Protobuf, and schema registries such as Confluent or Apicurio.
- Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, GKE, Istio, and Linkerd.
- Experience with GCP Pub/Sub, Dataflow, and migration from legacy systems such as IBM MQ or RabbitMQ.
- Knowledge of ACLs, SASL/SCRAM, Kerberos, IAM, and at-least-once and exactly-once delivery semantics.
- Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, GCP Monitoring, CI/CD automation for Kafka resources, Dataplex, and Collibra.
- Industry experience, certifications, design leadership, mentoring, and experience working in agile environments.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about O’Reilly Auto Parts and has not been reviewed or approved by O’Reilly Auto Parts.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity-style upside is strengthened by an Employee Stock Purchase Plan that allows eligible full-time team members to buy ORLY shares via payroll deductions at a discount, improving access to ownership. This creates a tangible wealth-building lever that is positioned as stronger than many retail peers’ stock purchase offerings.
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Inclusive Benefits Coverage — Retirement access is broadened because both part-time and full-time team members are immediately eligible to enroll in the 401(k). Whole-person support also extends beyond full-time staff through O’Care Solutions, which is described as available to full- and part-time team members at no cost.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellness and support benefits are expanded through the Live Life Well program, which can reduce medical premium share when specific health criteria are met. O’Care Solutions adds lifestyle and wellbeing coverage through counseling and practical supports like legal/financial consults and caregiving resources.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Insights
What We Do
O’Reilly Auto Parts started as a single store and has grown into a leading retailer in the automotive aftermarket industry with more than 6,100 locations and counting. With more than 94,000 team members, O’Reilly has expanded into 48 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Canada. O’Reilly, headquartered in Springfield, Missouri, has a deep commitment to serving our customers, community, and our team members. Our culture values make O’Reilly the best place to work and grow! Whether you're interested in running a local store, managing a distribution center, or climbing the corporate ladder, O’Reilly has a career path in which you can truly thrive. Find out what it means to Live Green at our Fortune 500 Company and come work at the O! Mission: O'Reilly Automotive intends to be the dominant supplier of auto parts in our market areas by offering our retail customers, professional installers, and jobbers the best combination of price and quality provided with the highest possible service level.
