Job Description:

Google Cloud Platform Developer/Architect - Contract

Location: London - 5 days on-site

Contract: 6 months initially, with potential extension

Start Date: Immediate

IR35 Status: Inside IR35

Damia Group is a specialist Talent Solution Provider partnering with leading organisations across technology, financial services, defence and other highly regulated industries. We are currently supporting a major organisation with the appointment of an experienced Google Cloud Platform Architect to join a high-performing engineering and cloud platform team.

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Cloud Architect / Platform Engineer to work on complex, enterprise-scale cloud-native environments, influencing architectural decisions and helping shape cloud engineering standards across multiple teams.

The role requires someone who can combine deep hands-on engineering expertise with strong architectural thinking, while being comfortable working with senior technical stakeholders and influencing technology strategy.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect and deliver complex, creative software and cloud solutions, applying strategic thinking to ambiguous technical problems and influencing architectural decisions across teams.
• Develop secure, high-quality production code and actively review, debug and improve code produced by other engineers.
• Lead architectural design for cloud-native systems and services, producing comprehensive RFCs, ADRs, architecture diagrams and other technical design documentation.
• Drive operational excellence by identifying patterns in system failures, operational metrics and data, implementing improvements to reliability, performance and observability.
• Lead technology and vendor assessments, conducting technical deep dives and evaluating architectural approaches, technical capabilities and emerging technologies.
• Help develop engineering communities of practice, promoting cloud-native technologies, engineering standards and best practices.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers through code reviews, technical design and knowledge sharing.
• Contribute to strategic initiatives covering cloud platform standards, CI/CD maturity and Infrastructure-as-Code.
• Design and operate resilient, highly scalable cloud services in line with enterprise security, compliance and public cloud standards.

Required Skills & Experience

• Formal training or certification in software engineering concepts with 5+ years' professional experience in production software development.
• Advanced hands-on experience across system design, application development, testing and operational stability at scale.
• Strong proficiency in modern programming languages, with Go or Python particularly desirable.
• Advanced Kubernetes platform engineering experience, including designing, developing and operating custom Kubernetes Operators and Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs).
• Experience with technologies such as Kubebuilder, Operator SDK or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of Kubernetes internals, API machinery, RBAC, multi-tenancy, observability and production operational practices.
• Proven experience building cloud-native control planes and automation frameworks on Kubernetes, including reconciliation loops, admission controllers, webhooks and custom controllers.
• Strong Google Cloud Platform experience, including architecting, building, deploying and operating production cloud-native workloads using core GCP services.
• Understanding of cloud cost optimisation, security and enterprise architecture principles.
• Strong experience designing and implementing CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation and deployment strategies.
• Advanced understanding of the Software Development Lifecycle and experience improving engineering practices across teams.
• Strong knowledge of agile engineering methodologies, CI/CD, application resilience, security and capacity planning.
• Demonstrable expertise in a technical discipline such as cloud architecture, distributed systems, security, DevOps or platform engineering.
• Experience working within the financial services sector, including understanding of IT environments, regulatory requirements and operational constraints.
• Practical experience using AI-assisted developer tools and AI agents, such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code or equivalent.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to explain complex technical decisions and trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Desirable Skills

• Advanced Infrastructure-as-Code experience, particularly Terraform, CloudFormation or CDK.
• Strong observability and monitoring experience with technologies such as Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog or CloudWatch.
• Relevant Google Cloud certifications, such as Developer, Solutions Architect or Security.
• Experience implementing cloud security practices including secure coding, threat modelling, compliance and incident response.
• Open-source contributions or a strong track record of technical knowledge sharing.
• Experience leading multi-team initiatives spanning infrastructure, application and platform engineering.

Damia Group Limited acts as an employment agency for permanent recruitment and employment business for the supply of temporary workers. By applying for this job you accept our Data Protection Policy which can be found on our website.

Please note that no terminology in this advert is intended to discriminate on the grounds of a person's gender, marital status, race, religion, colour, age, disability or sexual orientation. Every candidate will be assessed only in accordance with their merits, qualifications and ability to perform the duties of the job.

Should the role require the successful candidate to undergo and be eligible for UK Security Vetting. Clearance sponsorship will be provided where required. Due to the nature of the work, candidates should meet the relevant residency requirements. If applicable, Reserved Post nationality restrictions will be confirmed by the client. Damia is committed to inclusive recruitment and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds.

Damia Group is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy and in accordance to Conduct Regulations 2003.