Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Ford Motor Company is seeking a Principal Cloud Database Engineer to drive architecture, engineering, and innovation across enterprise-scale database platforms. This role will lead modernization efforts using Google Cloud Platform services while integrating AI-driven capabilities into database operations.
Responsibilities
- Lead architecture design and engineering for GCP relational database platforms (Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, Cloud SQL for SQL Server, AlloyDB, Spanner)
- Define and implement enterprise database standards aligned with security, scalability, and performance best practices
- Drive modernization initiatives including database migrations to GCP using tools such as DMS, Striim and migration frameworks
- Design highly available, resilient, and cost-optimized database solutions on GCP
- Implement infrastructure-as-code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform
- Enable secure connectivity patterns (IAM, VPC, Private Service Access, Private Service Connect, serverless integrations)
- Lead Cloud Databases financial accounting, performance tuning, capacity planning, and database reliability engineering
- Integrate AI/ML capabilities into database platforms (e.g., MCP, data agents, context engineering, anomaly detection, query optimization)
- Consult with application teams to enable data pipelines for AI/ML workloads
- Evaluate and adopt AI-assisted database operations and automation solutions
- Drive initiatives on AI-enabled observability and self-healing systems
- Establish best practices for backup, recovery, disaster recovery, and compliance
- Define monitoring, logging, and alerting strategies for database services
- Lead database governance and continuous cost optimization initiatives
- Provide CUD evaluation and recommendations
- Mentor Summer Interns, Ford College Graduates, Cloud engineers and Database Specialists; act as Subject Matter Expert for GCP relational databases
- Partner with application, DevOps, and architecture teams to deliver scalable solutions
- Influence platform strategy and roadmap for database and AI adoption
- Advocate with GCP product and engineering teams to enhance/mature GCP database services
Skills
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or related field
- 10+ years of experience in relational database engineering (PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, AlloyDB or Spanner)
- 5+ years of hands-on experience with GCP, especially: Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL and/or Cloud SQL for SQL Server, AlloyDB, Cloud Spanner
- Strong expertise in: Database platform automation, design, indexing, and performance tuning, Backup/recovery and high availability architectures, Migration strategies and tools (e.g., DMS, Striim, replication tools)
- Experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and IaC
- Programming experience (Terraform, Python, Java, or Go)
Benefits
- Immediate medical, dental, and prescription drug coverage
- Flexible family care, parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
- Vehicle discount program for employees and family members, and management leases
- Tuition assistance
- Established and active employee resource groups
- Paid time off for individual and team community service
- A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
- Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.
Company Overview