Cloud Architect

ALOIS UK; Perth; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

ALOIS UK is seeking a Cloud Architect to support high-assurance engagements across sovereign cloud and defence initiatives in Australia. You will design, implement, and govern GDC/GKE architectures, integrating with Defence data centres and secure tactical nodes.

You will lead infrastructure-as-code pipelines, enforce security controls, and collaborate with government stakeholders to deliver resilient, compliant solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical industry experience.
• Minimum 5 years of architecture/engineering experience in Defence domain environments.
• Proven production experience with GKE/Anthos/GDC Kubernetes platforms.
• Experience with on-premises, SDDC, hyperconverged, or edge infrastructures.
• Knowledge of IRAP, ISM controls, and defence security frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement GDC architecture across hosted and air-gapped deployments.
• Configure and harden enterprise GKE clusters and multi-tenant topologies.
• Develop IaC deployment pipelines using Terraform for Kubernetes resources.
• Implement GitOps workflows with ACM Config Sync, Helm, and Kustomize.
• Translate Defence concepts into practical designs and runbooks.

Skills

Clearance required

Stakeholder communication

Architectural documentation

Defence domain experience

GKE expertise

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Python

Bash

Kubernetes

Istio

GDC appliances

Job description

Engagement Summary & Position Overview: The architect will be deployed to support high-assurance customer engagements across sovereign cloud and defence initiatives, including the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) GDC deployment, Army LAND 4140 Future C4, and naval/joint sovereign cloud pilot programs.

Key Responsibilities

The Cloud Architect will operate under Google PSO delivery oversight to execute post-sales architecture, engineering design, implementation, and assurance activities.

Specific Day-to-day Responsibilities Include

• Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) Architecture & Deployment
  • Design and implement Google Distributed Cloud (GDC Hosted and GDC Air-Gapped) infrastructure patterns across bare-metal compute, software-defined storage, and high-performance physical networking.
  • Establish resilient edge and disconnected deployment topologies capable of operating in Degraded, Intermittent, and Low-bandwidth (DDIL) operational environments.
  • Integrate GDC appliances and hardware footprints with existing Defence data centres, deployed field environments, and secure tactical nodes.
  • Formulate and execute comprehensive Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuity (BC), and High Availability (HA) strategies for sovereign infrastructure.
• Container Platform Engineering & Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
  • Must Have: Architect, configure, harden, and manage enterprise Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and GDC-based Kubernetes clusters across multi-tenant and air-gapped topologies.
  • Implement declarative GitOps and configuration management workflows utilizing Anthos Config Management (ACM) / Config Sync, Helm, and Kustomize.
  • Develop and maintain automated infrastructure-as-code (IaC) deployment pipelines using Terraform to provision Kubernetes platform resources, namespaces, role-based access controls, and network policies.
  • Troubleshoot complex container networking, service mesh (Anthos Service Mesh / Istio), ingress/egress controls, storage classes, and persistent volume integration within GKE.
• Defence Domain Systems Integration & Operational Alignment
  • Translate customer operational Defence concepts, mission partner requirements, and Commonwealth ICT standards into practical, supportable technical designs.
  • Facilitate integration between GDC/GKE workloads and legacy Defence platforms, including VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), hyperconverged infrastructure, and enterprise identity fabrics.
  • Author High-Level Designs (HLD), Low-Level Designs (LLD), Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), interface specifications, and operational runbooks conforming to Defence Architecture Framework standards.
  • Participate in customer architecture working groups, engineering review boards, and technical sprint retrospectives alongside Google and customer engineering teams.
• Security Assurance, Governance & Compliance
  • Incorporate Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) security controls and Defence Security Principles Framework (DSPF) guidelines into a l architectural designs.
  • Support Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment preparation, vulnerability mitigation, and security documentation up to SECRET classification levels.
  • Enforce strict Identity and Access Management (IAM), Privileged Access Management (PAM), mutual TLS (mTLS), and cryptographic key management standards across containerized applications.
  • Qualifications & Experience Standards Folowing Google job posting and candidate qualification standards, applicants must strictly satisfy all

Qualifications & Experience Standards

Following Google job posting and candidate qualification standards, applicants must strictly satisfy all

Minimum Qualifications (MQs) — Non-Negotiable

• Citizenship & Clearance: Australian Citizenship with an active Australian Government Security Clearance: Negative Vetting Level 1 (NV1) mandatory; NV2 eligibility or active NV2 highly regarded.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Systems, or equivalent practical industry experience.
• Defence Domain Experience: Minimum 5 years of demonstrated architecture, engineering, or systems integration experience within the Australian Department of Defence, Australian Defence Force (ADF), or Commonwealth national security environments.
• Mandatory Kubernetes / GKE Expertise: Demonstrated production experience designing, deploying, and administering container orchestration environments with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or Anthos/GDC-based Kubernetes platforms.
• Hybrid & Edge Infrastructure: Proven experience architecting and implementing on-premises, software-defined data centre (SDDC), hyperconverged, or distributed edge infrastructure (e.g., bare-metal Linux, VMware, HCI, or enterprise networking).
• Stakeholder Communication: Proven track record authoring formal enterprise architecture documentation, technical designs, and presenting complex solutions to government and Defence stakeholders. Preferred Qualifications (PQs) — Strongly Desired
• Certified Google Cloud Professional: Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect, Professional Cloud Security Engineer, or Professional Cloud Network Engineer.
• Kubernetes Certifications: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), or Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS).
• Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) Expertise: Direct experience with Google Distributed Cloud (GDC Hosted, GDC Air-Gapped, or GDC Edge) hardware appliances, management planes, and disconnected operations.
• Defence Edge & Tactical ICT: Specialized background in deployed ICT, tactical communications, fleet/deployed mission partner networks, or environments operating under DDIL constraints.
• Military / Ex-Service Background: Prior service in the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, or Defence civilian inte ligence organizations.
• Security Compliance Acumen: Familiarity with IRAP assessments, PSPF, ISM controls, DISP governance, and defence export control frameworks (e.g., ITAR).
• Modern Automation & IaC: Advanced proficiency in Terraform, Ansible, Python, Bash, and enterprise CI/CD toolchains in secure or disconnected bastions.

Minimum Qualifications (MQs) to be eligible for consideration. Preferred Qualifications (PQs) represent advanced capabilities that enhance project delivery success.