Lead Data Architect - Google Spanner

Lead Data Architect - Google Spanner

"Role Summary

Own the target-state data architecture on Google Spanner, ensuring the new data model satisfies functional correctness, performance SLOs, and transactional semantics required by 1000+ applications—before large-scale app rewrites occur.

This role is not a schema converter. It is a distributed systems architect role.

Key Responsibilities

Data Architecture & Modeling

• Define the Logical Canonical Data Model (LCDM) independent of physical storage.

• Design Spanner-native physical schemas:

o Primary key strategy

o Row key distribution (hotspot avoidance) o Interleaving decisions o Secondary index strategy • Decide where denormalization, projections, or materialized views are required.

Transaction & Consistency Design

• Define transaction boundaries under Spanner constraints:

o Single-partition vs multi-partition transactions o Atomicity and consistency trade-offs • Classify workloads by strong consistency vs bounded staleness tolerance.

• Define idempotency and retry-safe patterns.

Compatibility & Contract Validation

• Work with QA and platform teams to validate:

o CRUD contracts

o Query semantics

o Transaction invariants

• Review and sign off on schema compatibility scorecards.

Performance & Scalability

• Participate in workload replay analysis.

• Diagnose and resolve:

o Hot key risks

o Transaction conflicts

o Index amplification

• Size Spanner instances and estimate cost envelopes.

Leadership

• Act as final authority for Spanner data design decisions.

• Mentor domain architects and engineers.

• Provide executive-level architectural rationale.

Required Skills & Experience

• 10+ years in large-scale data architecture • Deep expertise in Google Spanner internals:

o TrueTime

o Distributed transactions

o Synchronous replication

• Experience designing petabyte-scale, multi-region OLTP systems • Strong understanding of:

o Distributed consistency models

o Failure modes in globally distributed databases • Prior Oracle → distributed DB migration experience strongly preferred Key Deliverables • Canonical logical data model • Spanner physical schemas & index strategies • Transaction design guidelines • Performance readiness assessments • Migration readiness sign-off per domain

Role Descriptions: Key Responsibilities by Role TypeSoftware Engineer (Cloud Spanner Platform) Designs and implements features for distributed systems| manages database storage infrastructure| and improves performance.Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)| Spanner Focuses on system reliability| automating management processes| and managing on-call rotations to maintain uptime for large-scale production databases.Engineering Manager| Spanner Migration Leads teams to build tools for transitioning databases and drives adoption of Spanner| providing high-performance SQL capabilities. Google CareersGoogle Careers 4Common Qualifications  SkillsEducation Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science or related fields.Technical Skills Experience with distributed computing| large-scale systems design| networking| and data storage.Databases Expertise in relational databases (SQL) and cloud infrastructure.Soft Skills Strong leadership| collaboration| and troubleshooting abilities. Google CareersGoogle Careers 3Core Focus AreasHigh Reliability Maintaining 99.999 availability and managing data replication across regions.Performance Optimization Optimizing query execution| handling TB-scale data| and refining transactional readswrites.Distributed Systems Working on complex systems that provide strong consistency globally. Google CloudGoogle Cloud 2These roles frequently involve working on cutting-edge database technology at Googles scale.

Essential Skills: Key Responsibilities by Role TypeSoftware Engineer (Cloud Spanner Platform) Designs and implements features for distributed systems| manages database storage infrastructure| and improves performance.Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)| Spanner Focuses on system reliability| automating management processes| and managing on-call rotations to maintain uptime for large-scale production databases.Engineering Manager| Spanner Migration Leads teams to build tools for transitioning databases and drives adoption of Spanner| providing high-performance SQL capabilities. Google CareersGoogle Careers 4Common Qualifications  SkillsEducation Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science or related fields.Technical Skills Experience with distributed computing| large-scale systems design| networking| and data storage.Databases Expertise in relational databases (SQL) and cloud infrastructure.Soft Skills Strong leadership| collaboration| and troubleshooting abilities. Google CareersGoogle Careers 3Core Focus AreasHigh Reliability Maintaining 99.999 availability and managing data replication across regions.Performance Optimization Optimizing query execution| handling TB-scale data| and refining transactional readswrites.Distributed Systems Working on complex systems that provide strong consistency globally. Google CloudGoogle Cloud 2These roles frequently involve working on cutting-edge database technology at Googles scale.

Own the target-state data architecture on Google Spanner Act as final authority for Spanner data design decisions.

• Mentor domain architects and engineers.

• Provide executive-level architectural rationale.