Smart Factory Architect

We’re looking for a hands-on Smart Factory Architect who can design and drive delivery of edge-to-cloud industrial data & application architectures across global manufacturing sites. You’ll bridge OT systems (PLC/SCADA/DCS/MES/Historians) with cloud services (Azure/AWS/Snowflake, etc.), ensuring ISA-95 interoperability, robust cybersecurity (Zero Trust), and reliable data flows for use cases like performance analytics, predictive maintenance, and digital twins.
You’ll operate as a technical leader who can review architecture, validate implementation plans, unblock delivery, and communicate clearly across engineering, OT, security, networking, and site stakeholders.
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Key responsibilities
Architecture & technical leadership
• Act as the technical expert for Smart Factory / Edge architectures in a multi-site, multi-stakeholder environment.
• Review architectural designs (edge, network, cloud, security, data models) and confirm the feasibility of implementation plans.
• Align with Cloud Engineers and OT consultants to ensure ISA-95 compliant IT/OT integration and interoperability across layers (L0–L4/5).
• Validate that all required services are deployed and configured correctly (cloud resources, edge runtime, connectivity, identity, monitoring).
Edge-to-cloud integration & data flow validation
• Define and validate edge-to-cloud data flow requirements, including:
o Tag list/signals, payload schemas/formats, naming conventions
o Frequency, buffering, store-and-forward, latency/availability targets
o Data quality rules (units, timestamps, limits, gaps, duplicates)
o Create logical & conceptual models for contextualization
• Validate conceptual and logical modelling of the factory asset hierarchy (site/area/line/cell/equipment/component) and mapping to data streams.
• Support the implementation of industrial connectivity patterns (e.g., OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus, REST) and integration with OT data sources (historians, SCADA, MES, CMMS, LIMS when relevant).

Cloud & platform enablement (Azure/AWS/Snowflake)
• Drive architecture decisions for ingestion, storage, and analytics using services such as:
o Azure (IoT Hub, Event Hubs, Functions, AKS, Data Lake, Databricks/Synapse, Monitor, Key Vault, Private Link)
o AWS (IoT Core, Kinesis, Lambda, EKS, S3, Glue, CloudWatch, Secrets Manager, Greengrass)
o Snowflake (ingestion patterns, data modeling, governance, performance considerations)
• Ensure observability is in place: logging, metrics, tracing, alerting, and operational runbooks.
Network, cybersecurity & site readiness
• Coordinate with site IT/networking to ensure:
o Connectivity readiness (routing, DNS, proxy, certificates)
o Firewall rules, ports, and secure connectivity patterns (VPN/ExpressRoute/Direct Connect where applicable)
• Ensure alignment with factory cybersecurity and Zero Trust principles, including segmentation, least privilege, secure remote access, and auditability.
Testing, go-live, and operational stabilization
• Own the go-live checklist and drive issue resolution during integration testing and cutover.
• Support test data ingestion and end-to-end validation, from OT signal extraction through cloud ingestion, storage, and consumption.
• Validate performance and reliability requirements (throughput, latency, resilience, recovery) and ensure operational handover readiness.
Digital Twin & OT platforms
• Contribute to Digital Twin concepts built on IT/OT convergence (asset hierarchy + telemetry + context).
• Work hands-on with OT / Smart Factory platforms such as AVEVA, Sight Machine, and/or similar (e.g., Ignition, OSIsoft/PI, Tulip, PTC ThingWorx, depending on environment).
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Required qualifications & experience
• 7+ years of experience in industrial IT/OT, smart factory, or manufacturing digitalization roles, with architect-level ownership of designs and deployments.
• Proven hands-on delivery experience implementing edge-to-cloud integration in real factory environments.
• Strong understanding of:
o ISA-95 (integration patterns and manufacturing system layers)
o Industrial architectures (OT network segmentation, DMZ patterns, edge gateways)
o Core OT systems (PLC/SCADA/DCS, historian, MES) and data acquisition methods
• Cloud architecture experience on Azure and/or AWS (plus familiarity with Snowflake, databricks and modern data platforms).
• Solid fundamentals in networking (firewalls, VLANs, routing, certificates, proxies) and troubleshooting in restricted environments.
• knowledge of identity and access management (Azure AD/RBAC/Managed Identities or AWS IAM, secrets, key management).
• Excellent communication skills, able to lead technical conversations with security, IT, OT, and business stakeholders globally.
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Technical skill set (must-have)
• Edge/IIoT protocols & patterns: OPC UA, MQTT, REST APIs, store-and-forward, buffering, offline resilience
• Data engineering basics: schema design, time-series concepts, streaming ingestion, partitioning, data quality checks
• Cloud security: least privilege, private networking, key management, audit/logging, policy enforcement
• Operational readiness: integration test planning, go-live governance, incident triage and structured problem-solving
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Preferred / nice-to-have
• Knowledge of IEC 62443 / OT security frameworks and industrial zero trust patterns.
• Experience with Kubernetes at edge/cloud (AKS/EKS), IaC (Terraform/Bicep/CloudFormation), and CI/CD.
• Experience with industrial historians and time-series stacks (e.g., AVEVA/PI-like patterns).
• Familiarity with data governance (catalog, lineage, access policies) and regulated environments.
• Experience building or operationalizing Digital Twin solutions (asset model + context + telemetry).