What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Cloud Engineer (GCP)) position at ACL Digital?
Senior Cloud Engineer (GCP) – Embedded Architecture & Delivery
Long term Contract
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Overview
We are seeking a Senior Cloud Engineer with deep Google Cloud Platform (GCP) expertise to embed within application development teams and drive high-quality cloud architecture and implementation. This role combines hands-on engineering with architectural leadership, ensuring teams select and implement the right GCP services and patterns.
You will operate as a technical leader across multiple teams, owning cloud-related decisions, accelerating delivery, and raising the overall engineering maturity of our application development organization.
What You’ll Do
- Own and guide GCP architecture decisions for application teams, ensuring scalability, security, and cost-efficiency
- Embed with development teams to accelerate delivery on high-priority initiatives
- Act as a bridge between application teams and platform engineering, leveraging shared capabilities while adapting them to real-world needs
- Design and implement infrastructure using Terraform, including:
- Internal enterprise modules
- Google Cloud Foundation Fabric (CFF) modules
- Custom extensions where needed
- Contribute directly to delivery with a hands-on approach (~50% coding/building)
- Troubleshoot complex infrastructure and platform issues; serve as a Tier 3 escalation point
- Help define and mature CI/CD and DevSecOps practices using GitLab and enterprise standards
- Guide teams in adopting secure, scalable patterns across networking, IAM, and service design
- Upskill and mentor developers on cloud-native development and infrastructure practices
- Provide pragmatic guidance—balancing best practices with delivery speed
What You Bring
Core Experience
- Strong hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in production environments
- Proven ability to design and implement cloud architectures, not just operate them
- Deep experience with Terraform in enterprise environments
- Experience working with or extending modular IaC frameworks (e.g., CFF or similar)
- Background supporting or embedding within application development teams
Technical Skills
- GCP services across compute and application platforms (e.g., GKE, Cloud Run, Compute Engine)
- Strong understanding of:
- IAM and security design
- Networking (VPCs, connectivity, service access)
- Observability and troubleshooting
- CI/CD experience, preferably with GitLab pipelines
- Familiarity with Internal Developer Platforms (IDP) concepts (e.g., Humanitec or similar)
Ways of Working
- Comfortable owning decisions and influencing without authority
- Able to move between teams and contexts quickly
- Strong troubleshooting mindset—able to dig into complex issues and resolve them hands-on
- Passion for mentoring and elevating other engineers
- Pragmatic: knows when to standardize and when to adapt
Nice to Have
- Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect certification
- Experience with Google Cloud Foundation Fabric (CFF)
- Experience building or operating Internal Developer Platforms
- Exposure to DevSecOps and enterprise security practices
Role Characteristics
- 50/50 split between hands-on engineering and architectural guidance
- No on-call responsibilities, but acts as a senior escalation point
- Floats across teams, with the ability to focus deeply on critical initiatives
- Reports into Application Development leadership while partnering closely with Platform Engineering