Principal/Staff Tech Lead - Data Engineering

The Tech Lead is the technical spine of the engagement. They sit across all four delivery areas — Data Engineering, Frontend, ML/AI, and DevOps/Infrastructure — providing architectural direction, resolving cross-track dependencies, and ensuring the quality and coherence of everything we ship. Equally critical is the ability to represent CLOUDSUFI in a credible, articulate, and collaborative manner to Google counterparts at every level.

What You Will Do

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Own the end-to-end technical architecture across all program tracks, ensuring alignment with Google Data Commons standards, APIs, and roadmap.

• Define and enforce engineering best practices, coding standards, and review processes across Data Engineering, Frontend, ML/AI, and DevOps/Infra workstreams.

• Make high-stakes design decisions on data modeling, pipeline architecture, schema design, and system integration — with clear documentation and traceability.

• Proactively identify technical risks, cross-track conflicts, and blockers; drive resolution before they impact delivery.

• Lead or participate in architecture review sessions with Google's core engineering team.

Cross-Track Coordination

• Act as the single technical point of contact horizontally across all tracks, breaking down silos and ensuring consistent patterns and interfaces.

• Facilitate technical syncs across track leads; surface dependencies early and coordinate sequencing of deliverables.

• Define shared standards for data contracts, API interfaces, and infrastructure configuration used across tracks.

Google Partnership & Communication

• Build and maintain a strong working relationship with the Google Data Commons core team — attending joint ceremonies, reviews, and design discussions.

• Represent CLOUDSUFI's delivery quality and technical credibility in all interactions with Google stakeholders.

• Translate complex technical discussions into clear summaries for both technical and non-technical audiences across both organizations.

• Proactively communicate progress, blockers, and decisions to CLOUDSUFI leadership and Google program managers.

Delivery Quality & Engineering Excellence

• Drive code reviews, set quality gates, and ensure CI/CD pipelines, test coverage, and observability standards are met across all tracks.

• Champion performance, reliability, and scalability from design through production.

• Mentor and technically grow senior engineers across tracks without carrying formal HR responsibility.

• Contribute hands-on to critical technical work when needed — this is a hybrid IC and leadership role.

Technology Stack & Domain Knowledge

Core / Must-Have

• Google Data Commons – deep familiarity with the Data Commons knowledge graph, DCID conventions, import pipelines, and the Statistical Variable hierarchy.

• Google Cloud Spanner – schema design, distributed transactions, interleaved tables, and performance tuning at scale.

• Google BigQuery – data modeling, partitioning/clustering strategies, query optimization, and integration with downstream consumers.

• Data pipelines – Apache Beam / Dataflow, or equivalent GCP-native ETL tooling.

• Infrastructure as Code – Terraform on GCP; Cloud Build, Artifact Registry, GKE or Cloud Run.

Strong Advantage

• Python (primary language for Data Commons import tooling and ML pipelines).

• TypeScript / React for the Data Commons web frontend and visualization layers.

• Vertex AI, BigQuery ML, or equivalent ML lifecycle tooling.

• Knowledge graph principles, RDF/SPARQL, or statistical data modeling.

• Data Commons Python / REST APIs and the DCID import automation tools.

• Experience with Google's internal engineering culture, tools (e.g. Buganizer, Critique, Cider), or prior delivery inside a Google product or partnership engagement.

Experience & Qualifications Required

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a formal or informal tech lead capacity overseeing multiple workstreams.

• Demonstrable experience delivering production-grade systems on Google Cloud Platform.

• Prior experience working with or for Google — as a Googler, through a Google partnership program, or as a contractor embedded in a Google team — is strongly preferred.

• Exceptional verbal and written English communication skills; able to engage confidently with senior Google engineers and program managers.

• Proven ability to operate across ambiguous, fast-moving programs with multiple parallel tracks.

• Based in Bangalore, India, and able to work on-site at Google's Bangalore office on a regular basis.

Preferred

• Experience in the data and AI consulting or professional services space, particularly within the Google Cloud partner ecosystem.

• Familiarity with open data, public statistics, or knowledge graph use cases (e.g. UN SDG data, census data, health/economic indicators).

• Prior contribution to open-source projects, particularly Google Data Commons or related tooling.

What CLOUDSUFI Offers

• A flagship engagement at the intersection of Google's open data infrastructure and real-world AI/data impact.

• Daily collaboration with Google's core engineering team — a rare opportunity to work inside one of Google's strategic open data initiatives.

• Competitive compensation benchmarked at Staff / Principal level in the Bangalore market.

• CLOUDSUFI's full benefits package.

• A culture that values technical excellence, client trust, and a people-first approach to delivery.