GCP Architect

About the Role

We are looking for a hands-on Cloud Architect to lead the design, build-out, and automation of secure, scalable Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environments. You will own the cloud foundation end to end — from assessment and landing-zone design through Infrastructure-as-Code automation, DevSecOps, Kubernetes/GKE, observability, and internal developer platforms. This is a senior, delivery-focused role for someone who combines deep GCP engineering expertise with a platform-engineering mindset and a passion for automation and enablement.

Key Responsibilities

• **Cloud Assessment & Architecture:**Assess existing landscapes, define target-state GCP architectures, and design secure, well-governed landing zones and multi-tenant cloud environments.
• **Infrastructure as Code:**Design and build modular, reusable Terraform to provision and manage all GCP infrastructure, ensuring consistency, repeatability, and drift control across environments.
• **DevSecOps & CI/CD:**Design and implement CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, embedding security throughout the lifecycle — secrets scanning, SAST/DAST, image scanning, and policy-as-code guardrails.
• **GCP Services Configuration:**Architect and configure core GCP services — networking (VPC, subnets, peering, hybrid connectivity), databases, compute, API gateway, and Pub/Sub messaging.
• **Identity, IAM & Policy:**Configure Cloud Identity and IAM, organization and security policies, and least-privilege access models and guardrails across the organization hierarchy.
• **DNS & CDN:**Design and configure Cloud DNS, Cloud CDN, and load balancing for performant, resilient, and globally available services.
• **GKE & Kubernetes:**Automate GKE cluster provisioning and lifecycle management, and lead the migration of workloads to GKE with autoscaling, networking, and Workload Identity.
• **Observability & Monitoring:**Define the observability strategy and configure monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting, and SLO/SLI dashboards using Cloud Operations, Prometheus, and Grafana.
• **Platform Engineering:**Build internal developer platforms and self-service capabilities using tools such as Spotify Backstage — creating golden paths, service templates, and reusable modules that accelerate delivery teams.
• **Leadership & Enablement:**Provide technical leadership and mentoring, author architecture and standards documentation, and partner closely with client and delivery stakeholders.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years in IT with 5+ years architecting and delivering solutions on Google Cloud Platform (strong multi-cloud experience with a GCP focus also considered).
• Deep, hands-on expertise with Terraform for Infrastructure as Code, including reusable module design.
• Strong DevSecOps and CI/CD experience with GitHub Actions and shift-left security practices.
• Production experience operating Kubernetes/GKE at scale, including cluster automation and workload migrations.
• Expertise across GCP networking, compute, managed databases, API gateway, Pub/Sub, Cloud Identity, and IAM.
• Solid grounding in cloud networking — DNS, CDN, and load balancing.
• Experience designing observability with Cloud Operations suite, Prometheus, and Grafana.
• Platform-engineering / internal-developer-platform experience (Spotify Backstage or similar).
• Proficiency in at least one scripting/automation language (Python, Go, or Bash).

Preferred (Nice to Have)

• Google Professional Cloud Architect and/or Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer certification.
• Experience with multi-tenant SaaS platforms and security/compliance frameworks (ISO 27001, SOC 2).
• Familiarity with service mesh (Istio/Anthos Service Mesh) and GitOps (Argo CD / Flux).
• Exposure to FinOps practices and cloud cost optimization.

What You'll Bring

Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, a bias for automation and documentation, strong problem-solving instincts, and the ability to lead and mentor engineers in a fast-paced, client-facing environment.