Team Lead Engineer - Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN (Onsite - Auburn Hills, MI)

The Role

The Team Lead Engineer - Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN will lead the engineering team responsible for designing, implementing, deploying, migrating, and maintaining Volkswagen Group of America's Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN environment. The role is hands-on and leadership-oriented, requiring deep SD-WAN, carrier WAN, BGP, firewall/security, and operational support experience. The position will coordinate circuit installations with carriers, partner with carrier project managers, guide technical design through VWGoA architecture and PMO governance, complete configurations and testing, and lead migration from the existing MPLS network to the new SD-WAN architecture 

Responsibilities

SD-WAN Architecture, Design, and Governance - 30% 

• Own the technical design for the Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN platform, including edge profiles, templates, segmentation, routing, QoS, internet underlay, high availability, and migration strategy. 

• Work with VWGoA PMO, architecture governance, cybersecurity, infrastructure, and operations teams to complete Architecture & Design Reviews and ensure approved designs are implementation-ready. 

• Develop high-level and detailed designs, migration runbooks, test plans, operational handoff documentation, and deployment standards. 

Deployment, Migration, and Testing - 25% 

• Lead configuration, staging, deployment, testing, and production migration from the current MPLS WAN environment to the new Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN environment. 

• Coordinate pilot deployments, site readiness, implementation windows, validation testing, rollback planning, and transition to support. 

• Ensure routing, segmentation, firewall, application performance, and availability requirements are validated before each production cutover. 

Carrier, Circuit, and WAN Underlay Coordination - 20% 

• Coordinate circuit ordering, carrier project management, installation milestones, demarcation readiness, turn-up testing, and acceptance for WAN underlay services. 

• Manage technical coordination with carriers for CE/PE router handoffs, routing exchange, BGP policies, route reflector considerations, traffic shaping, QoS alignment, and availability/resiliency requirements. 

• Track carrier escalations and ensure circuit dependencies are visible to project managers, technical teams, and business stakeholders. 

Team Leadership and Operational Support - 15% 

• Lead and mentor SD-WAN engineers responsible for implementation, operational support, documentation, and lifecycle management. 

• Serve as senior escalation point for operational incidents involving VeloCloud overlays, circuit underlays, provider routing, firewall/security interconnects, and application performance. 

• Participate in on-call support for operational escalations and major incidents outside standard business hours. 

Documentation, Standards, and Continuous Improvement - 10% 

• Create and maintain implementation standards, reusable templates, network diagrams, operational procedures, and knowledge-transfer materials. 

• Identify automation, monitoring, analytics, and process improvements that reduce incident duration, improve site rollout consistency, and increase service resiliency.

Work Schedule:

• Hybrid remote role with onsite presence in Auburn Hills, MI three days per week.
• Primary work schedule is standard business hours, Monday through Friday.
• On-call participation is required for operational escalations, major incidents, production maintenance windows, and migrations outside standard hours as needed.
• Limited domestic travel may be required for site assessments, major deployments, or carrier/vendor coordination.

Education:

Required: Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Telecommunications, or equivalent work experience.

Preferred : Advanced technical certifications or equivalent practical experience in network engineering, SD-WAN, carrier WAN, and security platforms. 

Experience:

• 10+ years of IT infrastructure and networking experience.
• Minimum 5 years hands-on VeloCloud SD-WAN experience.

Skills:

General:

• Technical leadership and mentoring 

• Structured problem solving and root cause analysis 

• Strong written and verbal communication with technical, executive, vendor, and project audiences 

• Project coordination and ability to drive delivery across internal teams, carriers, and suppliers 

• Operational urgency, ownership mindset, and attention to detail 

• ITIL-aligned incident, change, problem, and service request execution 

• Continuous improvement focus and ability to standardize repeatable deployment practices 

Required:

• Lead design, configuration, deployment, testing, migration, and lifecycle support for Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN across VWGoA sites. 

• Minimum 10 years of IT infrastructure and networking experience, including at least 5 years of hands-on VeloCloud SD-WAN experience. 

• Deep experience designing and operating enterprise WAN environments, including MPLS, Internet underlay, DIA, broadband, LTE/5G, Ethernet, and transport diversity. 

• Deep carrier WAN experience managing CE and PE provider-router concepts, routing handoffs, service turn-up, demarcation, provider escalation, and acceptance testing. 

• Advanced BGP experience including route policy, route filtering, communities, local preference, AS path prepending, redistribution, route reflectors, and high-availability route design. 

• Experience with QoS, traffic shaping, queuing, bandwidth management, latency/jitter/loss troubleshooting, and WAN availability/resiliency concepts across various circuits. 

• Experience with Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet firewall platforms in enterprise WAN, SD-WAN, segmentation, and secure connectivity environments. 

• Ability to work with PMO and architecture governance teams to complete Architecture & Design Reviews and transition approved designs into implementation. 

• Ability to lead technical resources, coordinate vendors and carriers, and act as senior escalation point for operational incidents. 

Preferred:

• VeloCloud certification desired; experience working for or with a VeloCloud partner, carrier, or managed service provider preferred. 

• Palo Alto Networks certifications preferred, such as PCNSA, PCNSE, or equivalent practical firewall/security certification. 

• Fortinet certifications preferred, such as FCP, FCSS, NSE 4/5/7, or equivalent practical firewall/security certification. 

• Advanced networking certifications preferred, such as CCNP Enterprise, CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure, CCIE Service Provider, JNCIP/JNCIE, or equivalent. 

• Experience with SASE, cloud connectivity, cloud security integration, automation, and analytics/monitoring platforms. 

Percentage of required travel: up to 100%

Physical requirements:

• This job operates in an office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, cameras, photocopiers, and filing cabinets.
• Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times.
• While performing the duties of this job the employee is required to talk, hear, walk, sit, stand, climb stairs on occasion with extended periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to work effectively and complete tasks in an open office/noisy environment.
• Must be able to sit for extended periods of time while traveling in a car or airplane.

Applicants for employment in the US must have work authorization that does not now or in the future require sponsorship of a visa for employment authorization in the United States and with MHP Americas, Inc. (ie, H1-B visa, F-1 visa (OPT), or any other non-immigrant status).