Cloud Platform Architect

GCS Recruitment; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

401(k) plan

Paid holidays

Paid vacation

Job summary

GCS Recruitment in California is seeking a Senior Cloud Platform Architect to define the architectural strategy for a global cloud platform, balancing hands-on coding with leadership across SRE/DevOps initiatives.

You will design multi-region, highly available infrastructure, drive automation with Terraform and IaC, and guide engineering teams through ADRs, patterns, and observability with Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and GCP tooling. This hybrid role demands deep Kubernetes and cloud experience.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in infrastructure/platform engineering within large-scale production environments.
• Expert-level experience with GCP (or AWS), multi-region architectures, GKE optimisation, networking, and security.
• Deep Kubernetes expertise in production.
• Advanced Terraform development and IaC best practices.
• Strong coding skills in Python, Bash, and/or Go.
• Linux systems expertise across multiple distributions.
• Proven ability to create technical documentation and ADRs.

Responsibilities

• Define and enforce architectural standards across the cloud product portfolio.
• Lead technology evaluations and vendor selections with clear technical recommendations.
• Create Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) for major initiatives.
• Provide hands-on technical guidance to engineering teams on implementation patterns.
• Drive cross-product technical alignment and establish common standards.
• Own the technical roadmap for cloud infrastructure and automation.
• Architect solutions for multi-region HA, disaster recovery, and infrastructure-as-code.
• Design automation frameworks that eliminate manual processes and reduce operational toil.
• Build observability solutions using Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and GCP tooling.
• Write production-grade code in Python, Bash, and Go for automation and tooling.
• Develop Terraform modules and IaC patterns for enterprise-scale deployments.

Skills

10+ years infrastructure

GCP/AWS expertise

Kubernetes production

Terraform / IaC

Python / Bash / Go

Linux systems

ADR documentation

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

Prometheus/Grafana/ELK

GCP tooling

CI/CD tools

Job description

Cloud Platform Architect (Senior)
California - Hybrid (3 days/week onsite) · Full-time

About the role

We're looking for a hands‑on Cloud Platform Architect to lead technical strategy and drive transformation across our global SRE and DevOps operations. This is a senior individual‑contributor role where you'll set the architectural vision, guide implementation, and influence technology decisions for a cloud platform serving millions of users worldwide.

As a key member of the engineering leadership team, you'll help move the organisation from manual operations to automated, intelligent workflows - balancing strategic architecture with hands‑on coding (roughly 40-50% of the role). You'll work across multi‑tenant GCP infrastructure, Kubernetes optimisation, disaster recovery, automation frameworks, and compliance solutions.

What you'll do

• Define and enforce architectural standards across the cloud product portfolio
• Lead technology evaluations and vendor selections with clear technical recommendations
• Create Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) for major initiatives
• Provide hands‑on technical guidance to engineering teams on implementation patterns
• Drive cross‑product technical alignment and establish common standards
• Own the technical roadmap for cloud infrastructure and automation
• Architect solutions for multi‑region HA, disaster recovery, and infrastructure‑as‑code
• Design automation frameworks that eliminate manual processes and reduce operational toil
• Build observability solutions using Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and GCP tooling
• Write production‑grade code in Python, Bash, and Go for automation and tooling
• Develop Terraform modules and IaC patterns for enterprise‑scale deployments

What you'll bring

• 10+ years in infrastructure/platform engineering within large‑scale production environments
• Expert‑level experience with GCP (or AWS), multi‑region architectures, GKE optimisation, networking, and security
• Deep Kubernetes expertise in production
• Advanced Terraform development and IaC best practices
• Strong coding skills in Python, Bash, and/or Go
• Linux systems expertise across multiple distributions
• Proven ability to create technical documentation and ADRs

Nice to have

• Multi‑cloud experience (AWS/Azure)
• Compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP)
• Demonstrated cost‑optimisation wins
• SRE/DevOps transformation leadership
• Observability platform expertise
• Disaster recovery design and implementation
• GitOps and CI/CD pipeline expertise (Jenkins, GitLab, ArgoCD)

What's on offer

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
• Life and accidental death insurance
• 401(k) plan and company incentive plan
• 11 paid holidays, two weeks' paid vacation (prorated by start date), plus additional leave options