Senior GCP Cloud Engineer

Role / Title: Senior Cloud Engineer (GCP)

Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA

Duration: 07 Months Contract with possible

Job details:

Senior Cloud Engineer (GCP) – Embedded Architecture & Delivery

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:

o Internal enterprise modules

o Google Cloud Foundation Fabric (CFF) modules

o 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:

o IAM and security design

o Networking (VPCs, connectivity, service access)

o 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

Why This Role Matters

This role is critical to ensuring our application teams can move fast without compromising on architecture, security, or scalability. You will directly shape how cloud is used across the organization and help teams build the right way from the start.