Principal Java & Google Cloud Platform Solution Architect

Principal Java & Google Cloud Platform Solution Architect

Principal Java and Google Cloud Platform Solution Architect who can bring both deep technical expertise and thought leadership to complex client engagements. This role requires a hands-on architect who can design modern Java microservices, shape cloud-native strategy on Google Cloud Platform, guide engineering teams, and serve as a trusted technical voice with senior client stakeholders. This is not a documentation-only architecture position the successful candidate must remain close to implementation and be able to turn architectural direction into practical delivery outcomes.

Join our growing Detroit-area team in a strategic Principal Java & Google Cloud Platform Solution Architect role. You ll work a hybrid / onsite /remote combin while remaining available for onsite collaboration as needed with clients, delivery teams, and technical leadership across the local Michigan area.

What You Will Do

• Lead the architecture, design, and implementation of modern Java-based applications using cloud-native and microservices patterns.
• Translate business requirements into practical architectural blueprints aligned with enterprise standards and long-term strategy.
• Provide technical thought leadership across ongoing and future client engagements.
• Assess existing application landscapes and recommend modernization, migration, and optimization strategies.
• Design secure, scalable, resilient, observable, and high-performing distributed systems.
• Define application, integration, API, data, deployment, and operational architecture.
• Establish API-first strategies using REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and event-driven patterns.
• Design asynchronous and event-driven solutions using technologies such as Kafka or RabbitMQ.
• Guide engineering teams in the use of Java 11+, Spring Boot, microservices, containers, Kubernetes, and cloud-native design patterns.
• Lead architecture reviews, technical assessments, proofs of concept, and technology evaluations.
• Establish reusable architecture standards, reference patterns, engineering guidelines, and technical governance.
• Collaborate with developers, DevOps engineers, QA teams, security teams, product leaders, and business stakeholders.
• Provide technical guidance throughout design, development, testing, deployment, and production support.
• Guide containerization and orchestration strategies using Docker and Kubernetes, preferably Google Kubernetes Engine.
• Define CI/CD, GitOps, and infrastructure-as-code approaches using tools such as Jenkins, ArgoCD, Git, and Terraform.
• Design observability frameworks covering logs, metrics, traces, alerts, dashboards, and production diagnostics.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and determine where they can provide practical business and engineering value.
• Mentor senior developers, technical leads, and architects.
• Present architecture recommendations, trade-offs, risks, and decisions to senior technical and business stakeholders.
• Identify technical risks, dependencies, architectural gaps, and remediation strategies.
• Ensure architectural decisions support maintainability, security, performance, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency.

Required Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing and delivering enterprise Java applications.
• Deep expertise in Java 11 or later and Spring Boot.
• Proven experience architecting microservices and distributed systems.
• Strong production-level architecture experience with Google Cloud Platform.
• Experience designing and deploying applications using Google Cloud Platform cloud-native services.
• Strong hands-on knowledge of Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with Google Kubernetes Engine or comparable enterprise Kubernetes platforms.
• Strong understanding of RESTful APIs and API-first architecture.
• Experience with one or more additional integration patterns or technologies:
  • GraphQL
  • gRPC
  • Event-driven architecture
  • Asynchronous messaging
• Experience with Kafka, RabbitMQ, or comparable messaging technologies.
• Strong knowledge of scalability, resilience, fault tolerance, performance, security, and observability.
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases, including distributed-system data modeling.
• Experience with MongoDB, Cassandra, or comparable NoSQL platforms.
• Knowledge of API gateways and service-mesh technologies.
• Experience with Istio, Linkerd, or comparable service-mesh platforms.
• Experience with CI/CD and DevOps toolchains.
• Working knowledge of Jenkins, GitOps, ArgoCD, Terraform, or comparable tools.
• Strong experience designing logging, monitoring, metrics, and distributed-tracing solutions.
• Experience with one or more of the following:
  • OpenTelemetry
  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
  • ELK Stack
  • Dynatrace
  • Jaeger
  • Zipkin
• Proven architecture-governance and technical-leadership experience.
• Strong client-facing communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to explain complex technical concepts, options, risks, and trade-offs to both technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical strategy and guide teams without relying solely on formal authority.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading complex cloud-modernization or monolith-to-microservices programs.
• Experience supporting multiple enterprise or client engagements.
• Consulting or systems-integration experience.
• Google Cloud Platform Professional Cloud Architect certification.
• Experience establishing enterprise architecture standards or cloud-native reference architectures.
• Experience designing highly available, high-volume, or mission-critical platforms.
• Experience conducting architecture assessments and technology-selection initiatives.
• Experience mentoring architects and senior engineers.
• Public speaking, technical writing, internal technology leadership, or architecture-community participation.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is more than a senior Java developer who has moved into architecture. You have personally owned architecture decisions for complex enterprise platforms and can explain how those decisions improved business, delivery, reliability, or operational outcomes.

You remain technically close enough to implementation to guide developers, review designs, evaluate code-level implications, troubleshoot difficult issues, and challenge assumptions. At the same time, you are comfortable presenting to senior client stakeholders and influencing long-term technology strategy.

You know how to introduce modern technologies thoughtfully. You evaluate business value, operational complexity, risk, scalability, and long-term maintainability rather than adopting tools simply because they are new.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role includes:

• Building credibility as a trusted technical advisor
• Improving the quality and consistency of architectural decisions
• Establishing reusable Java and Google Cloud Platform architecture patterns
• Helping teams deliver scalable and reliable cloud-native solutions
• Identifying architecture risks before they become delivery or production issues
• Strengthening engineering practices across client engagements
• Contributing technical expertise that expands and deepens client relationships

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