Principal GCP Data Architect

VLink•Santa Clara, CA

1d•Remote

About The Position

We are seeking a hands-on Principal GCP Data Architect to lead the design, and implementation of large-scale data ecosystems. The ideal candidate is an architect who has led massive cloud migrations, built self-serve data platforms from the ground up, and maintains a rigorous focus on data governance and security.

Requirements

Expert-level mastery of the GCP Data Stack: Storage & Warehouse: BigQuery (including BigLake and Omni), Google Cloud Storage, Processing : Dataflow (Apache Beam), Dataproc (Spark/Hadoop), Cloud Composer (Airflow)., Messaging: Pub/Sub and Confluent/Kafka integration, Analytics & AI: Looker, Vertex AI, and BigQuery ML.
Must hold an active GCP Professional Data Engineer certification.
Deep experience with dbt, Airflow, and containerization (GKE/Kubernetes).
18–20 years in Data Engineering, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence, with at least 6+ years focused specifically on GCP.
Proven experience leading at least two enterprise-scale migrations (PB-scale) to the cloud.
Demonstrated experience leading large, cross-functional engineering teams in an Agile/DevOps environment.
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical field.

Nice To Haves

A Data Readiness Placement (DRP) ID with a verified score of 50+ is highly preferable, demonstrating a high level of technical proficiency and architectural maturity.

Responsibilities

Define the long-term roadmap for data platforms on GCP, ensuring alignment with global business goals and "North Star " data strategies.
Architect and oversee the build-out of modern, self-serve data architectures that empower decentralized teams while maintaining central standards.
Lead complex end-to-end migration from AWS to GCP.
Design and enforce robust data security frameworks including IAM, VPC Service Controls, Data Masking/Encryption, and automated governance using Dataplex.
Drive automation using Terraform or Pulumi to ensure repeatable, scalable, and version-controlled infrastructure.
Act as a trusted advisor to the VP of Data, articulating the ROI of data initiatives and managing technical risk.