Software Architect

About the Role

Our client, based in Abu Dhabi, is developing a cutting-edge industrial platform intended for applications in mining, energy, and broader industrial operations. They seek a seasoned Software Architect to lead the platform's architectural design from start to finish. This senior-level individual contributor role emphasizes setting the technical vision rather than managing teams, and requires staying actively involved in the implementation to validate architectural decisions.

Key Responsibilities

• Establish the future-state architecture, standards, and reusable design patterns for the platform supporting on-premises, cloud-native, and hybrid deployments.
• Design the data ingestion and streaming layer to handle high-frequency time-series and event data such as telemetry, alarms, and operational events in real time and near-real time.
• Architect integration solutions with industrial systems including devices, gateways, PLCs, SCADA, historians, and enterprise applications.
• Create secure data pipelines for hosting machine learning models, integrating vector databases, and enabling real-time system observability.
• Implement governance frameworks covering safety, data privacy, cost optimization, and regulatory compliance.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, engineering, operations, AI, and security teams; engage directly with customers and vendors to guide technical decisions.

Candidate Requirements

• At least 15 years of professional experience, including approximately 10 years in architecture roles.
• Strong hands-on engineering foundation, particularly with .NET and microservices architectures before transitioning to architecture positions.
• Proven background in industrial domains such as mining, metals, oil and gas, manufacturing, or industrial automation.
• Expertise with Apache Kafka or similar streaming platforms and Kafka Streams.
• Experience working with time-series data platforms like InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, or OSI PI.
• Familiarity with MQTT, OPC UA, and the related industrial connector ecosystems.
• Skilled in containerized deployments, API design, and event-driven architectural principles.
• Track record of designing and owning entire platform architectures rather than isolated components.
• Educational background at a Bachelor's or Master's level in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, or a related discipline.

Desirable Qualifications

• Experience with applied AI on industrial datasets, including integration with large language models (LLM), AI agent frameworks, multi-cloud platforms (MCP), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, or MLOps methods.
• Knowledge of designing solutions for multi-tenant and multi-client environments.
• Awareness of industrial security standards such as IEC 62443.