Principal GCP Data Architect

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal GCP Data Architect based in the United States.

This is a hands-on principal-level architecture role focused on designing and scaling enterprise data ecosystems entirely within Google Cloud Platform.

• Define the long-term roadmap and architectural strategy for enterprise data platforms on Google Cloud, ensuring alignment with broader business objectives and strategic data initiatives.
• Design and oversee modern, self-service data architectures that enable decentralized teams while maintaining centralized standards for governance, security, data quality, and operational consistency.
• Lead complex, end-to-end enterprise cloud migrations, including large-scale migrations from AWS to GCP.
• Architect and implement highly scalable data ecosystems capable of supporting petabyte-scale workloads and demanding enterprise use cases.
• Establish robust data governance and security frameworks covering IAM, VPC Service Controls, data masking, encryption, and automated governance capabilities.
• Drive Infrastructure as Code practices using Terraform or Pulumi to create scalable, repeatable, version-controlled cloud infrastructure.
• Architect solutions across the GCP data ecosystem, including BigQuery, BigLake, BigQuery Omni, Google Cloud Storage, Dataflow, Dataproc, Cloud Composer, Pub/Sub, and related services.
• Enable modern analytics and AI capabilities through technologies such as Looker, Vertex AI, and BigQuery ML.
• Architect and integrate messaging and streaming solutions using Pub/Sub and platforms such as Confluent and Kafka.
• Establish modern data engineering practices using dbt, Airflow, Apache Beam, and containerized technologies such as GKE and Kubernetes.
• Lead and mentor large, cross-functional engineering teams operating within Agile and DevOps environments.
• Collaborate with data engineers, software engineers, security specialists, business stakeholders, and technical leadership to deliver scalable and secure data solutions.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to executive stakeholders, communicating architectural decisions, technical risks, investment priorities, and expected business outcomes.
• Define enterprise architecture standards, engineering best practices, and continuous improvement initiatives across data platforms.
• Communicate the business value and ROI of major data initiatives while proactively identifying and mitigating technical and operational risks.

• Bring at least 18–20 years of professional experience across data engineering, data warehousing, and business intelligence.
• Have at least 6 years of dedicated experience working with Google Cloud Platform.
• Have worked exclusively with GCP within your relevant cloud experience.
• Hold an active Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer certification.
• Demonstrate expert-level proficiency across the GCP data stack, including BigQuery, BigLake, BigQuery Omni, Google Cloud Storage, Dataflow, Apache Beam, Dataproc, Spark, Hadoop, Cloud Composer, Airflow, and Pub/Sub.
• Have experience integrating Confluent and Kafka with enterprise data platforms and streaming architectures.
• Demonstrate strong knowledge of Looker, Vertex AI, and BigQuery ML for analytics and AI use cases.
• Bring deep experience with modern data engineering technologies such as dbt, Airflow, GKE, and Kubernetes.
• Have successfully led at least two enterprise-scale, petabyte-scale cloud migrations.
• Demonstrate strong expertise in enterprise data platform architecture, data governance, cloud security, and scalable data engineering.
• Have hands-on experience implementing Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Pulumi, or comparable technologies.
• Demonstrate experience leading and mentoring large, cross-functional engineering teams within Agile and DevOps environments.
• Possess strong executive communication, stakeholder management, and technical advisory skills, with the ability to explain complex architecture and business value to senior leadership.
• Hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline.
• Be a U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder.

• Annual compensation of $160,000–$220,000.
• Full-time employment.
• Remote work opportunity within the United States.
• Opportunity to work on large-scale enterprise data architecture and cloud transformation initiatives.
• Exposure to advanced GCP technologies spanning data engineering, analytics, AI, streaming, governance, and cloud infrastructure.
• Opportunity to influence enterprise-wide architecture standards and long-term data platform strategy.
• Significant technical leadership and mentoring responsibilities across cross-functional engineering teams.
• Collaboration with senior technical and executive stakeholders on high-impact