GCP Data Architect

The Role The GCP Solution Architect / Data Architect plays a critical role in designing, governing, and delivering enterprise-scale data and cloud solutions across finance transformation programmes. This hybrid position combines strategic solution architecture with hands-on data architecture expertise to enable resilient, scalable, and cost-effective data platforms. The role ensures alignment with enterprise standards, supports quarterly planning, and guides engineering teams through iterative delivery cycles. Your responsibilities: Solution Architecture • Lead end-to-end architecture design for cloud-native data solutions on GCP. • Shape architectural direction, ensuring alignment with security, data governance, and compliance standards. • Drive iterative design practices, influencing product owners, engineering teams, and cross-platform stakeholders. • Develop architectural roadmaps supporting quarterly planning cycles and long-term finance transformation goals. Data Architecture • Design conceptual, logical, and physical data models for financial, regulatory, and operational datasets. • Define ingestion, transformation, storage, and consumption patterns. • Establish principles for metadata, lineage, reference data, and data stewardship. • Collaborate with SMEs to translate business requirements into scalable data models. GCP Engineering Alignment • Architect solutions using GCP services such as BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Composer, Cloud Functions, and IAM. • Design cost-optimized workloads and implement best practices for performance and scalability. • Support engineering teams with reusable patterns, blueprint architectures, and cloud engineering guidance. Collaboration & Governance • Work with CTO architects, data platform teams, and transformation leads to influence platform decisions. • Participate in architecture boards, design forums, and technical governance committees. • Clearly articulate technical decisions and direction to non-technical and senior stakeholders. Good-to-Have Skills Your Profile • Strong expertise in GCP architecture (BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, IAM, Composer). • Proven experience designing complex, cross-team, enterprise-scale solutions. • Advanced data modelling (3NF, Data Vault, dimensional modelling). • Deep understanding of metadata, lineage, data governance, and reference data frameworks. • Strong experience with finance data flows—ledger, MI, reconciliation, and reporting. • Ability to lead engineering teams and drive architectural consistency. Qualifications • Google Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) – preferred. • Google Professional Data Engineer (PDE) – preferred. • TOGAF or equivalent enterprise architecture certification – desirable. Desirable skills/knowledge/experience: • Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines (Cloud Build, GitHub Actions, Jenkins). • Infrastructure as Code using Terraform. • Familiarity with data quality and lineage tools. • Understanding of hybrid and multi-cloud patterns. • Strong communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.