Proforma — Company & Role Brief (interview prep, Wed)

Company (verified facts)

  • Proforma: print + promotional products + packaging distributor, HQ 213 E Davis Blvd, Tampa FL 33606 (walking distance for you).
  • Largest family-owned and operated distributorship in the industry, 45+ years, ~$650M revenue.
  • Franchise model: "Distributor Owners" run local businesses on Proforma's platform. Your infra supports that network.
  • "$25M+ investment in technology", 85+ person technology team. They brand themselves "technology and business success leader" — tech is core to their pitch.
  • Leadership: CIO Brian Carothers (2015), CTO Mike Dobozy (2023), VP Technology Michael LaPlante.
  • Proprietary platform: ProVision — "our proprietary business management technology platform" used by Distributor Owners (order mgmt / business operations). Almost certainly one of the apps involved in the Windows VM → OpenShift migration.
  • Sources: onlyproforma.com/about-us, LinkedIn job posting 4456220665.

The role (verbatim highlights from the actual posting — richer than the recruiter brief)

  • Title: Infrastructure Engineer. Team of 2 + you. One person owns the networking/BGP work today = single point of failure they're trying to eliminate.
  • "Primary technical owner of the container networking stack, including BGP-based routing within the OpenShift virtualization environment."
  • "The ideal candidate combines deep networking expertise with hands-on Linux and container platform administration skills."
  • Hybrid environment: Windows + RHEL + OpenShift. Active migration off Windows VMs to OpenShift.
  • Posting specifics:
    • BGP routing within the OpenShift/OVN environment (note: they write "OpenShift Virtualization (OVN-Kubernetes)" — conflation; you should be able to cleanly separate OpenShift Virtualization (KubeVirt) from OVN-Kubernetes (the CNI). Doing so confidently in the interview = instant credibility.)
    • VLANs, subnets, IPAM, internal DNS
    • MetalLB load balancing
    • Network policies + micro-segmentation
    • Firewall rules, network security groups, perimeter connectivity
    • RHEL: patching, performance tuning, troubleshooting; storage: LVM, NFS, iSCSI
    • Bash + PowerShell scripting
    • OLM, Helm, namespaces, RBAC, quotas, service accounts
    • Windows Server + Active Directory in hybrid environment
    • Plus (not required): Ansible/Terraform, GitLab CI/Jenkins, GitOps
  • Preferred certs: RHCE, Red Hat OpenShift cert, CKA.
  • From your recruiter brief: NinjaOne RMM for endpoint management; hiring manager cares about on-prem experience (not AWS/Azure equivalents); MetalLB is their LB; Linux >> Windows emphasis.

Salary intel (from posting)

$100,000 – $120,000/yr. Negotiation anchor: this is a "redundancy + build" hire, so you have room — but don't raise it in round 1.

Inferred architecture (educated guesses — label as such if asked)

  • On-prem datacenter(s) in Tampa: VMware vCenter or Hyper-V hosting Windows VMs (their migration is Windows VM → OCP; MTV's primary source is vSphere).
  • OCP cluster on-prem, likely 4.12+ (OVN-Kubernetes default), RHCOS, MetalLB in BGP mode with FRR peering to physical ToR/routers.
  • Windows estate managed by NinjaOne RMM; AD remains for identity (LDAP bind into OCP).
  • Storage: NFS + iSCSI (matches posting; likely a SAN/NAS filer).
  • The Windows apps (ProVision back-office etc.) migrate either as containers (rewrite) or as VMs running on OpenShift Virtualization (lift-and-shift). Ask which mix — great question.

How to play this interview (1 hour, single hiring manager)

  1. He wants to verify BGP depth, hands-on. Lead with on-prem stories every time: private DC, ToR switches, VxRail/vCenter, DR failover tests. Never say "the cloud handles routing" — that's the exact concern that drove the distinction he drew in the brief.
  2. The SPOF theme: weave in redundancy thinking — runbooks, mentoring 15+ admins, cross-training, HA/failover design. That's literally why they're hiring.
  3. Correct the OVN-K/Virtualization conflation politely: "I'd split that into two layers — OVN-K is the CNI doing overlay networking, OpenShift Virtualization is KubeVirt running the VMs, and BGP enters at the MetalLB/FRR edge. They work together but they're distinct." That one sentence will win the interview.
  4. Don't claim NinjaOne production experience if you don't have it. Map it: "I ran SCCM/WSUS for Windows patching and Ansible for Linux — NinjaOne is the same RMM model: agent-based inventory, patch cycles, automation scripts, remote control."
  5. Your resume is a strong match — BGP, F5 LTM/GTM (maps to L4/L7), OpenShift ownership, V2V migrations, NFS migration, Ansible automation, mentoring. Every bullet has a story to tell (see 07-interview-qa.md).