Principal GCP Data Architect
About The Position
HRforGrowth® is engaged as the talent acquisition partner to conduct this search on behalf of a client organization that is hiring for this role. HRforGrowth is not the employer for this position. HRforGrowth identifies, evaluates, and presents top-tier candidates through its global talent acquisition practice; all employment decisions — including final selection, offer terms, compensation, and conditions of employment — are made solely by the hiring organization. Our Client is seeking a hands-on Principal GCP Data Architect to lead the design and implementation of large-scale data ecosystems. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) data stack, extensive data engineering experience, a proven track record of enterprise-scale cloud migrations, and strong capabilities in data governance, security, and modern data platform architecture. The successful candidate will have worked exclusively with GCP, possess an active GCP Professional Data Engineer certification, and come from a strong Data Engineering, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence background. AI experience is considered a plus.
Requirements
- Minimum 18–20 years of experience in Data Engineering, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence.
- Minimum 6 years of experience specifically focused on GCP.
- Candidates must have worked exclusively with GCP in their relevant cloud experience.
- Active GCP Professional Data Engineer certification is required.
- Expert-level proficiency across the GCP Data Stack, including: BigQuery, including BigLake and BigQuery Omni, Google Cloud Storage, Dataflow / Apache Beam, Dataproc / Spark / Hadoop, Cloud Composer / Airflow, Pub/Sub, Confluent / Kafka integration, Looker, Vertex AI, BigQuery ML.
- Deep experience with modern data technologies including dbt, Airflow, and GKE/Kubernetes.
- Proven experience leading at least two enterprise-scale, PB-scale cloud migrations.
- Demonstrated experience leading large, cross-functional engineering teams in Agile/DevOps environments.
- Strong expertise in data governance, security, architecture, and enterprise data platform design.
- Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code technologies such as Terraform or Pulumi.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical field.
- Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
- U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder required
Nice To Haves
- AI experience is considered a plus.
Responsibilities
- Define the long-term roadmap for enterprise data platforms on GCP, ensuring alignment with global business objectives and strategic data initiatives.
- Design and oversee modern, self-service data architectures that empower decentralized teams while maintaining centralized standards, governance, security, and quality.
- Lead complex, end-to-end enterprise-scale cloud migrations, including migrations from AWS to GCP.
- Architect and implement large-scale data ecosystems capable of supporting PB-scale workloads.
- Design and enforce robust data governance and security frameworks, including IAM, VPC Service Controls, data masking, encryption, and automated governance using Dataplex.
- Drive Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices using Terraform or Pulumi to create repeatable, scalable, and version-controlled infrastructure.
- Architect solutions using GCP data services including BigQuery, BigLake, BigQuery Omni, Google Cloud Storage, Dataflow, Dataproc, Cloud Composer, Pub/Sub, and related technologies.
- Support modern analytics and AI capabilities using Looker, Vertex AI, and BigQuery ML.
- Integrate messaging and streaming platforms including Pub/Sub and Confluent/Kafka.
- Establish and promote modern data engineering practices using dbt, Airflow, and containerization technologies such as GKE/Kubernetes.
- Lead and mentor large, cross-functional engineering teams within Agile and DevOps environments.
- Collaborate with data engineers, software engineers, security professionals, business stakeholders, and technical leadership.
- Act as a trusted technical advisor to executive stakeholders, including the VP of Data.
- Communicate the business value and ROI of data initiatives while identifying and managing technical risks.
- Establish architectural standards, best practices, and continuous improvement initiatives across enterprise data platforms.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
