GCP Cloud Engineer

Role details

ROLE OVERVIEW We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated GCP Cloud Systems Engineer to lead the design, deployment, and operational excellence of our Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environment. A key focus for this role will be to work with a transitional team of our legacy on-premises environment to a modern, cloud-native orchestration framework. The ideal candidate is a hybrid of a Systems Administrator and a DevOps Engineer— someone who is comfortable writing Terraform code, troubleshooting networking issues or migrating a legacy scheduler to Airflow and providing support. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Infrastructure & Automation - Design, build, and maintain scalable cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), primarily via Terraform. - Deploy and manage optimized Compute Engine’s, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters, serverless options like Cloud Run or Cloud Functions. - Configure and maintain Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), including subnetting, firewall rules, hybrid connectivity (VPN/Interconnect), Cloud Load Balancing, Certificate management, and Cloud DNS to ensure secure and efficient traffic flow. - Administer compute resources across Compute Engine, Cloud Run, and Cloud SQL. Security & Governance - Implement and assist in the management of a robust security posture using IAM roles and permissions, ensuring the principle of least privilege across all projects. - Manage secrets and sensitive configurations using GCP Secret Manager. - Manage Cloud Armor for DDoS protection and Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) for secure administrative access. - Utilize Security Command Center to proactively identify and remediate vulnerabilities. - Manage and assist in our ability to ensure the environment meets industry standards such as SOC2. Operations & Reliability - Establish comprehensive monitoring and alerting frameworks using Google Cloud Observability. - Develop and test automated backup and disaster recovery strategies. - Perform regular system patching and image hardening. Cost Management (FinOps) - Monitor cloud consumption and implement cost-saving measures (e.g., committed use discounts, right-sizing). - Establish billing alerts and resource labeling standards. Migration & Data Orchestration (Priority Focus) - Legacy Migration: Lead the strategic migration of batch scheduling workloads from on-premises systems to GCP Composer / Apache Airflow. - DAG Development: Design and implement scalable, maintainable Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) to automate complex data pipelines and batch jobs. - Workflow Optimization: Analyze legacy batch schedules to identify opportunities for parallelization, optimization, and modernization in the cloud. - Cutover Planning: Manage the risk and execution of "cutover" events, ensuring zero data loss and minimal downtime during the transition from on-prem to GCP. OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS & AVAILABILITY Crucial Note on Availability: As this role is critical to the stability of our production environments, the successful candidate must be available for support during both standard business hours and non-business hours. This includes: - Participation in an on-call rotation. - Availability for emergency troubleshooting during weekends or overnight if a critical system failure occurs. - Scheduling maintenance windows and migration cutovers during off-peak hours. QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS Minimum Requirements: - Experience: 3–5+ years of professional experience managing production environments in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). - Migration Expertise: 3–5 years of proven experience supporting the migration of on-premises batch scheduling systems to GCP Composer or Apache Airflow. - IaC: Proven expertise with Terraform for provisioning cloud resources. - Containers: Strong proficiency with Docker and Kubernetes (K8s). - OS: Expert-level knowledge of Linux administration. - Networking: Deep understanding of TCP/IP, DNS, and Load Balancing. Preferred Qualifications: - Certification: GCP Professional Cloud Architect or Professional Data Engineer. - CI/CD: Experience with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Google Cloud Build. - Scripting: Proficiency in Python (specifically for Airflow/Composer DAG development).