Google Cloud Platform Architect

Contract Role: Google Cloud Platform Architect

Contract Location: Glasgow / On-site 5 days

Contract Duration: 6 months initially (with potential extension)

Contract Start Date: Immediate

Job Responsibilities

• Architects and executes complex, creative software solutions with ability to

think strategically beyond routine or conventional approaches - breaking down

ambiguous technical problems and influencing architectural decisions across

teams

• Develops secure, high-quality production code and actively reviews, debugs,

and improves code written by others - establishing coding standards and

raising the engineering bar across the team

• Leads architectural design for cloud-native systems and services, producing

comprehensive design artifacts (RFCs, ADRs, architecture diagrams) that are

reviewed and adopted across multiple teams

• Owns operational excellence by proactively identifying patterns in system

failures, operational metrics, and data; designing and implementing

systematic improvements to system reliability, performance, and observability

• Evaluates and leads vendor/technology assessments -conducting deep-dive

sessions with external vendors, startups, and internal teams to drive

outcomes-oriented evaluation of architectural designs, technical credentials,

and applicability to the firm's technology strategy

• Leads and grows engineering communities of practice across Software

Engineering to drive awareness, adoption, and standards for emerging cloud

native technologies and best practices

• Mentors and develops junior and mid-level engineers through code review,

design collaboration, and knowledge-sharing activities

• Contributes to strategic initiatives that shape the firm's cloud platform

standards, CI/CD maturity, and infrastructure-as-code practices

• Builds and operates resilient, highly scalable services deployed to AWS in line

with firm-wide public cloud standards and security/compliance requirements

Required Qualifications, Capabilities, and Skills

• Formal training or certification on software engineering concepts and 5+ years

applied experience in production software development

• Advanced hands-on practical experience delivering system design,

application development, testing, and operational stability at scale

• Advanced proficiency in one or more modern programming languages with

demonstrated ability to optimize for performance, maintainability, and security

with GoLang or Python being preferred including performance optimization

and concurrency patterns

• Advanced Kubernetes platform engineering expertise, including hands-on

experience designing, developing, and operating custom Kubernetes

Operators and Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) using frameworks such

as Kubebuilder, Operator SDK, or equivalent.

• Demonstrated ability to extend Kubernetes APIs to automate complex

platform, infrastructure, security, or application lifecycle workflows at

enterprise scale.

• Proven experience building cloud-native control planes and automation

frameworks on Kubernetes, including authoring reconciliation loops,

admission controllers, webhooks, and custom controllers; strong

understanding of Kubernetes internals, API machinery, RBAC, multi-tenancy,

observability, and operational best practices for production environments.

• In-depth Google Cloud development experience -architecting, building,

deploying, and operating production cloud-native workloads using core GCP

services; understanding cost optimization and security best practices

• Proficiency in automation and continuous delivery -designing and

implementing CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and deployment

strategies

• Advanced understanding of the Software Development Life Cycle - ability to

influence and improve SDLC practices across teams

• Advanced knowledge of agile methodologies -CI/CD, Application Resiliency,

Security, and capacity planning

• Demonstrated expertise in a technical discipline (e.g., cloud architecture,

artificial intelligence/machine learning, mobile, distributed systems, security,

DevOps/platform engineering)

• In-depth knowledge of financial services industry and their IT systems,

regulatory constraints, and operational requirements

• Practical experience with Al-assisted developer tools and Al agents (Copilot,

Claude Code, or equivalent) to improve engineering productivity, code quality,

and knowledge acquisition

• Strong communication and influence skills - ability to articulate technical

decisions, trade-offs, and recommendations to both technical and non

technical stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications, Capabilities, and Skills

• Advanced Infrastructure-as-Code expertise (Terraform, CloudFormation,

CDK) designing reusable modules and standards across teams

• Deep observability and monitoring expertise (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog,

CloudWatch) - designing comprehensive observability strategies

• GCP certifications (Developer, Solutions Architect, Security Specialty)
• Experience with security practices - secure coding, threat modelling,

compliance, and incident response in cloud environments

• Track record of open-source contributions or knowledge-sharing within the

engineering community

• Experience architecting or leading multi-team initiatives that span

infrastructure,

application, and platform engineering