Job Title: Cloud Platform & Infrastructure Architect
Location: UK - Remote
Duration: 6 Months (Extendable)
Employment Type: Contract B2B {Inside IR35}
Roles & Responsibilities:
We are seeking an experienced Cloud Architect with strong domain expertise in the retail sector and technical proficiency in vector search technologies and AI-driven agent systems. This role is responsible for designing scalable and intelligent cloud-native architectures that enhance personalization, product discovery, and operational efficiency for major retail customers using Google Cloud technologies.
Key Responsibilities
* Architect retail-centric solutions on GCP that optimize customer experience, supply chain, and omnichannel engagement.
* Implement and optimize vector search capabilities (e.g., ScaNN, FAISS) for personalized product search and recommendations.
* Design AI-powered agent systems to support customer service, inventory management, and sales enablement use cases.
* Collaborate with retail clients to assess current infrastructure and define scalable cloud transformation strategies.
* Lead the development of cloud-native microservices, event-driven systems, and ML pipelines using GCP tools.
* Ensure solutions are secure, compliant, and aligned with retail industry standards and best practices.
* Conduct architecture reviews, technical workshops, and hands-on engagements with customer engineering teams.
Required Qualifications
* Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
* 10+ years of experience in cloud architecture / solution engineering, including at least 3 years in the retail industry.
* 5+ years of experience in AI/ML engineering, with at least 2+ years specifically focused on Generative AI (LLMs, diffusion models, etc.).
* Extensive experience designing GCP-based architectures leveraging services such as Vertex AI, BigQuery, Dataflow, and GKE.
* Proficiency with vector similarity tools such as ScaNN, FAISS, or Vespa for semantic and visual search.
* Experience with AI agent frameworks (e.g., Dialogflow, LangChain, or custom agent orchestration solutions).
* Strong understanding of retail data ecosystems, POS integration, and customer engagement analytics.
* Strong hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) AI/ML services, especially Vertex AI (Workbench, Training, Prediction, Pipelines, Feature Store).
* Proficiency in Python and strong experience with AI/ML frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, JAX, Hugging Face Transformers).
* Experience with data engineering and building robust data pipelines for AI/ML workloads on GCP (e.g., BigQuery, Dataflow).
* Solid understanding of core AI/ML concepts, including deep learning, neural networks, NLP, and machine learning algorithms.
* Familiarity with MLOps principles and tools for deploying, managing, and monitoring ML models in production.
* Excellent problem-solving skills, with a passion for building innovative and impactful AI solutions.
* Google Professional Cloud Architect certification
Preferred Qualifications
* Google Cloud Machine Learning Engineer or equivalent.
* Experience leading digital transformation or AI/ML adoption in enterprise retail environments.
* Familiarity with headless commerce, product catalog systems, and in-store analytics solutions.
* Knowledge of GDPR and other compliance frameworks relevant to retail.
* Strong stakeholder engagement and cross-functional collaboration skills.