Principal Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

About Nerdery and Being a “Nerd.”
Nerdery is a digital product consultancy. Much more than consultants, we’re allies and guides on our clients’ digital journey – helping them to grow their business and delight their customers through intuitive, thoughtfully designed technology. As true partners, we prepare our clients for the opportunities in front of them, help them achieve their goals, and quickly deliver value for their customers. We do this by solving problems in creative ways across strategy, design, and technology.

At Nerdery, we’re not defined by our job titles but by the impact we make. You’ll work directly and closely with some of the world’s best brands to help create innovative digital products that serve everyone. As Nerds, our insight, innovation, and expertise are celebrated, and our growth is not only encouraged but expected. Being a Nerd means stepping up and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.  We’re curious, fearless (well, not totally fearless – there are heights and spiders, after all), and always our authentic selves.

We are looking for a Principal Cloud Infrastructure Engineer to join our team!  We invite you to check out the details below and consider whether becoming a Nerd is the next step in your career journey.

As a Principal Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Nerdery, you will be a senior technical leader shaping how we and our clients leverage Google Cloud Platform (GCP). You will lead the design, development, and management of secure, scalable, and cutting-edge GCP solutions, acting as the primary technical authority on projects. This role demands deep GCP infrastructure expertise combined with strong consulting acumen and communication skills to guide clients, mentor engineers, resolve technical challenges, manage escalations, and establish best practices. You will set technical standards, define Nerdery's approach to GCP technologies, and ensure our cloud capabilities drive client success. This is a key leadership opportunity within a growing team where you'll help define our path forward in GCP and work alongside passionate, highly skilled engineers.

Requirements

• 8+ years of hands-on cloud engineering experience, with significant focus on GCP.
• 5+ years in a Principal/Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer or Architect role, preferably within a consulting or client-facing environment.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical teams or projects.
• Undergraduate or graduate degree in a computer-related field OR a thorough demonstration of relevant technical skills.
• Deep, hands-on experience across core GCP services (Compute Engine, GKE, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage, VPC Networking, Load Balancing, IAM, Cloud Logging/Monitoring). GCP Professional Cloud Architect certification is strongly preferred.
• Proven expertise designing, implementing, managing, and creating reusable assets with Terraform.
• Ability to design, implement, and secure complex cloud networks. Understanding of GCP security best practices, IAM, network security controls, encryption, and familiarity with compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC2, HIPAA).
• Strong foundation in DevOps principles, CI/CD pipeline development (e.g., Cloud Build, GitLab CI), and automation scripting (e.g., Bash, Python).
• Exceptional communication skills (written/verbal) with proven ability to lead technical discovery, advise clients, present to executive audiences, negotiate technical decisions, and build trusted relationships.
• Strong analytical skills, ability to architect creative solutions, make sound technical judgments under pressure, mentor engineers, and lead technical teams effectively.
• Understanding of how to architect robust GCP infrastructure to support common data and AI workloads and services (e.g., Vertex AI, BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub), collaborating with data specialists.
• Ability to evaluate technologies, define technical standards, and contribute to the practice's technical strategy.
• A passion for technology and a demonstrated desire to continuously learn and stay current with the rapidly evolving cloud landscape.

What You'll Do:

• Lead the architecture and hands-on implementation of complex, scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud infrastructure solutions on GCP.
• Serve as the lead technical decision-maker on projects, aligning technical approaches and ensuring architectural integrity.
• Architect and standardize resilient GCP foundations, encompassing secure and efficient network designs (VPC, Load Balancing, Cloud DNS) and comprehensive observability strategies (Monitoring, Logging, Alerting) to ensure system health and performance.
• Champion and implement DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principl