Senior GCP Migration Architect

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Senior GCP Migration Architect

Location: Warren, NJ (Onsite)

Fulltime /Contract

About the Role

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior GCP Migration Architect to lead complex, large-scale migration programmes to Google Cloud Platform. This is a hands-on technical leadership role - not a purely advisory position. You will own the full migration lifecycle from discovery and planning through execution and post-migration optimisation, working directly with enterprise clients and internal delivery teams.

The ideal candidate has deep, proven experience in two distinct migration vectors: on-premises / data centre to GCP and cloud-to-cloud migrations (AWS or Azure to GCP). You will be expected to lead discovery workshops, define migration strategies, architect target-state GCP environments, and personally drive hands-on delivery using Google's native migration toolset.

Experience

• 20+ years of overall experience in cloud infrastructure, enterprise architecture, or IT transformation.
• 5+ years of hands-on GCP architecture experience, with deep knowledge of GCP core services across compute, storage, networking, databases, and security.
• Proven track record of leading end-to-end data centre to GCP migration programmes - from discovery through cutover - at enterprise scale (100+ workloads).
• Demonstrated experience leading cloud-to-cloud migrations (AWS-to-GCP or Azure-to-GCP), including workload re-mapping, service equivalence design, and cross-cloud data transfer.
• Hands-on experience with Google's native migration tools - Migrate to Virtual Machines, Database Migration Service, Storage Transfer Service, BigQuery Data Transfer Service - not just awareness of them.
• Hands-on experience with GCP landing zone design - resource hierarchy, shared VPC, organisation policies, IAM, and security controls.
• Experience leading discovery and planning phases of migration programmes, including dependency mapping, wave planning, workload classification, and MRA delivery.
• Strong command of GCP networking - VPC design, Cloud Interconnect, Cloud VPN, DNS, load balancing, and network security controls.
• Experience with database migration on GCP - Cloud SQL, AlloyDB, Spanner, BigQuery - including heterogeneous migrations using DMS.

Key Responsibilities

Migration Strategy & Discovery

• Lead end-to-end migration discovery and planning engagements - including application portfolio analysis, dependency mapping, workload classification, and migration readiness assessments.
• Conduct structured discovery workshops with client infrastructure, application, and business teams to build a comprehensive inventory of workloads, interdependencies, and migration constraints.
• Develop and maintain migration wave plans, sequencing workloads based on complexity, risk, business criticality, and dependency chains.
• Classify workloads across the migration spectrum - Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, Re-purchase, Retire - and develop workload-specific migration patterns and playbooks.
• Build detailed migration business cases including TCO analysis, ROI modelling, risk assessment, and phased investment roadmaps.
• Define and own the Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA) framework, identifying gaps in people, process, and technology that must be addressed before migration begins.
• Lead go/no-go decision frameworks for migration wave approvals, cutover readiness gates, and rollback criteria.

GCP Architecture & Landing Zone Design

• Architect secure, scalable, and compliant GCP landing zones using Google Cloud's enterprise foundation blueprints - including resource hierarchy (Organisation, Folders, Projects), IAM strategy, VPC design, and shared services architecture.
• Design hub-and-spoke and shared VPC network topologies, incorporating Cloud Interconnect, Cloud VPN, Private Google Access, and DNS architecture for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Define security architecture aligned with enterprise and regulatory requirements - including organisation policies, VPC Service Controls, Cloud Armor, CMEK (Customer-Managed Encryption Keys), and Cloud IAM least-privilege design.
• Design multi-region and multi-zone high-availability architectures aligned with client RTO/RPO objectives and disaster recovery requirements.
• Architect GCP environments for compliance with relevant frameworks (PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP) where required.

Data Centre to GCP Migration

• Lead the architecture and delivery of on-premises to GCP migrations, covering compute (VMs, bare metal), storage, databases, and networking infrastructure.
• Design and implement migration solutions using Google's native migration toolset including:
  • Migrate to Virtual Machines (formerly Velostrata) for VM lift-and-shift
  • Database Migration Service (DMS) for homogeneous and heterogeneous database migrations
  • Storage Transfer Service and Transfer Appliance for large-scale data movement
  • BigQuery Data Transfer Service for analytics workload migrations
  • Google Cloud Marketplace migration partner tools where applicable
• Define and execute cutover plans with minimal downtime, including pre-cutover validation, parallel-run strategies, and rollback procedures.
• Manage network connectivity establishment - Cloud Interconnect provisioning, BGP routing design, DNS cutover sequencing, and firewall rule migration.

Cloud-to-Cloud Migration (AWS / Azure to GCP)

• Lead cloud-to-cloud migration programmes, including AWS-to-GCP and Azure-to-GCP workload migrations across compute, storage, networking, databases, and managed services.
• Perform service mapping and equivalence analysis - translating AWS/Azure architectural patterns to GCP equivalents (e.g. EC2 Compute Engine, RDS Cloud SQL, EKS GKE, S3 Cloud Storage, Lambda Cloud Run/Cloud Functions).
• Identify and manage platform-specific migration risks - licensing changes, API incompatibilities, networking topology differences, IAM model translations, and cost model shifts.
• Design re-platforming strategies for workloads that require modernisation as part of cloud-to-cloud migration, including containerisation to GKE and serverless migration to Cloud Run.
• Leverage cloud-to-cloud data transfer tools and design network pathways for efficient, cost-effective cross-cloud data movement at scale.
• Develop and present comparative architecture analyses to clients, articulating GCP advantages, migration trade-offs, and target-state optimisation opportunities.

Delivery Leadership & Governance

• Serve as the senior technical authority on migration engagements, providing architectural guidance and technical decision-making across all workstreams.
• Lead and mentor a team of GCP engineers, cloud architects, and migration specialists, ensuring delivery quality and consistency across the programme.
• Own technical governance - architecture decision records (ADRs), design review processes, technical risk registers, and quality gates for migration deliverables.
• Present migration progress, risks, and architectural decisions to client CTO/CIO and engineering leadership with clarity and confidence.
• Collaborate with project and programme managers to ensure migration milestones, wave plans, and client commitments are met.
• Drive post-migration optimisation - cost rightsizing, performance tuning, observability implementation, and Well-Architected review against Google Cloud's framework.

Required Qualifications

Certifications

• Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect - mandatory. This is a non-negotiable requirement.
• Additional Google Cloud certifications strongly preferred (see below).

Skills

• Exceptional ability to lead executive-level conversations on migration strategy, risk, and architectural trade-offs.
• Strong written communication skills - able to produce high-quality architecture documents, migration playbooks, and client-facing deliverables independently.
• Experience working in consulting or systems integration environments managing complex client engagements (preferred but not mandatory for strong internal enterprise candidates).
• Familiarity with IaC tooling for GCP - Terraform (preferred), Cloud Deployment Manager, or Pulumi.

Understanding of FinOps principles and GCP cost optimisation - Committed Use Discounts, rightsizing, storage class optimisation, and sustained use discount modelling.