Principal Cloud Technical Architect (Google)

• We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Cloud Architect (Google Cloud) to partner with enterprise sales, consulting, and delivery teams in designing and positioning scalable, secure, resilient, and cost-optimized cloud solutions for clients across South Africa and the Middle East & Africa. This role serves as the senior technical leader for Google Cloud architecture engagements, providing strategic guidance, solution leadership, and architectural governance across the full cloud lifecycle.
• The successful candidate will be a trusted advisor to clients and internal stakeholders, translating business objectives into enterprise-grade cloud architectures while supporting pre-sales activities, solution design, migration strategies, modernization initiatives, and cloud transformation programs.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, and technical governance of enterprise-scale Google Cloud solutions.
• Partner with sales and client stakeholders to develop compelling cloud strategies, solution architectures, and transformation roadmaps.
• Design highly available, resilient, secure, and scalable cloud platforms using Google Cloud best practices and Google Cloud Architecture Framework principles.
• Define target-state architectures covering networking, security, identity, observability, automation, disaster recovery, and operational excellence.
• Develop and promote Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, Google Cloud Deployment Manager (or Infrastructure Manager) and Google Cloud configuration automation tools.
• Provide architectural leadership for cloud migration, application modernization, containerization, and serverless initiatives.
• Collaborate with engineering, DevOps, security, and application teams to implement CI/CD and platform automation strategies.
• Drive cloud security, compliance, governance, and FinOps best practices.
• Perform architecture reviews and provide technical oversight throughout solution delivery.
• Act as a trusted advisor to clients, presenting technical solutions to executive, business, and technical audiences.
• Mentor architects and engineers while contributing to cloud capability development and thought leadership.
• Stay current with emerging Google Cloud services, industry trends, and cloud-native technologies.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 8+ years of experience in IT infrastructure, cloud architecture, or platform engineering, with at least 4 years focused on Google Cloud.
• Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect certification (required or strongly preferred). Additional Google Cloud certifications are advantageous.
• Deep expertise across Google Cloud services including VPC, Cloud Router, Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, Bigtable/Firestore, Cloud IAM, Resource Manager, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud DNS, and Backup and DR.
• Strong experience designing enterprise networking, identity, security, and governance architectures within Google Cloud.
• Hands-on expertise with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Google Cloud infrastructure automation frameworks.
• Strong understanding of DevOps and platform engineering practices, including Git, CI/CD pipelines, Docker, Kubernetes, and automation frameworks.
• Experience implementing cloud security controls, compliance frameworks, and operational monitoring solutions.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, solution presentation, and documentation skills.

Preferred Experience

• Experience leading large-scale cloud migration and modernization programs.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Azure in hybrid or multi-cloud environments.
• Experience with serverless architectures, event-driven systems, and cloud-native application patterns.
• Experience with observability and monitoring platforms such as Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch, or Splunk.
• Background in software development or scripting using Python, Bash, PowerShell, or similar languages.
• Experience with cloud financial management (FinOps), cost optimization, and cloud governance frameworks.
• Experience supporting pre-sales, solution consulting, RFP responses, and executive-level client engagements.
• Experience supporting complex sales pursuits, RFP/RFI responses, solution workshops, and executive-level client presentations