Solution Designer / Lead Data Engineer (Google Cloud)

At NCS Australia, we believe in doing technology services better. Our commitment to quality, focus on people, and willingness to challenge traditional thinking set us apart. Our team brings this belief to life by partnering with our clients and communities to make tomorrow together. We are committed to creating an environment that prioritises innovation, collaboration, and purposeful work. Our diverse team is empowered to make a meaningful impact with curiosity, creativity and resilience to shape better outcomes. Join us and accept the challenge of creating a better tomorrow. We are seeking an experienced Solution Designer / Lead Data Engineer to drive a high-priority transformation initiative: uplifting and modernizing our enterprise Data Ingestion framework on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) . In this dual-capability role, you will combine high-level architectural design with deep data engineering expertise. You will take ownership of defining scalable, secure, and event-driven data pipeline architectures that process massive volumes of batch and streaming data from diverse sources into GCP. If you excel at bridging complex business data requirements with modern cloud-native architectures, this is a career-defining opportunity to shape an enterprise data platform from the ground up. What You’ll Be Doing Framework Modernization: Design and architect the next-generation, enterprise-wide GCP Data Ingestion framework , transitioning legacy ingestion patterns toward real-time, scalable, and automated cloud workflows. Solution Architecture & Design: Author comprehensive End-to-End Solution Design Documents (SDDs), technical blueprints, data mapping specifications, and ingestion patterns across batch and streaming sources. Pipeline Engineering Leadership: Provide hands-on technical leadership and guidance to data engineering squads building robust ingestion pipelines using GCP-native data services. Data Integration & Governance: Design secure ingestion interfaces connecting on-premises databases, SaaS platforms, third-party APIs, and streaming event hubs into BigQuery and Cloud Storage . Quality & Security Assurance: Embed automated data quality validation, lineage tracking, encryption, and governance controls (IAM, Data Catalog, DLP) directly into the ingestion lifecycle. Performance & Cost Optimization: Evaluate system throughput, optimize data pipeline efficiency, reduce latency, and govern compute/storage costs across GCP data environments. Core Requirements: GCP Data Ecosystem Mastery: Extensive experience designing and building data pipelines using core GCP services such as BigQuery, Dataflow (Apache Beam), Pub/Sub, Dataproc, Cloud Storage, and Cloud Data Fusion / Composer (Airflow) . Solution Design Capability: Proven track record as a Solution Designer or Lead Data Architect crafting high-level and low-level designs for large-scale enterprise data platforms. Ingestion Patterns: Deep understanding of modern ingestion paradigms (batch, micro-batch, real-time event streaming, CDC/Change Data Capture, and API-driven ingestion). Data Modeling & SQL: Advanced proficiency in SQL, schema design, data partitioning, and data modeling strategies optimized for analytical data warehouses (e.g., Star/Snowflake schemas, Data Vault). Programming & Automation: Strong coding capability in Python or Java/Scala , alongside Infrastructure as Code ( Terraform ) and modern CI/CD data deployment pipelines. Stakeholder Management: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to articulate complex data architectural decisions to senior tech leads, product owners, and business stakeholders. Highly Regarded: Google Cloud Certifications ( Professional Data Engineer or Professional Cloud Architect ). Experience with orchestration tools like Apache Airflow or dbt . Knowledge of enterprise governance frameworks and regulatory compliance standards for data privacy. Why join us: NCS Australia is where you can feel at home, nurturing your talents and skills as we make tomorrow together, one day at a time. Our benefits include paid parental leave, initiatives focused on your well-being and discounted health insurance. You will also enjoy discounts on various products and services and be regularly recognised and rewarded for high performance. We are committed to your career development through our Capability Fingerprint, industry and partner training programs, special interest groups, and an AI-driven learning platform. No matter where you are in your career, we offer meaningful work and opportunities for growth. NCS Australia is an equal-opportunity employer, and we take pride in our commitment to valuing and supporting our people and the communities we serve.We are dedicated to attracting, retaining and developing our people regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and age. Applications are encouraged from all sectors of the community and we strongly encourage applications from the Veterans, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander community. At NCS Australia, we are committed to supporting adjustments throughout the recruitment and selection process, as well as during employment. We actively support and encourage people with disability to apply. Agencies: We’ve got this. We request that you do not contact NCS employees outside of the Talent Acquisition team. NCS exclusively accepts resumes from agencies on our preferred supplier panel through the NCS Agency Portal. Agencies that submit resumes must have a valid fee agreement and be assigned to the particular requisition by the Talent Acquisition team. Any resumes that are submitted outside of this process will become the sole property of NCS. If a candidate is hired outside of this process, no fee or payment will be given. Work rights and background checks: To be eligible for a position with us, applicants will need to have valid work rights for Australia and be willing to undergo a comprehensive background checking process, including probity and police checks