R&D lead data architect 

What you will do

As an architect your main responsibilities are to make the match between the business use cases and the technology: you will closely collaborate with the researchers and their management to understand their needs, you will closely collaborate with the ICT platform teams to understand the technology and practices they provide, and most importantly you will make the match between both, providing solutions to the business challenges. You will help to shape the roadmaps of the technology platforms to make them fit for purpose to solve the business problems. You will design solutions for R&D people, and you will help R&D users to understand and use the platforms themselves.   

As the owner of the R&D part of the data domain, you will collaborate with solution architects, data engineers, report developers, ... to make sure that designs and implementations are following the overall strategy and are solving the business problems. You will initiate and follow up projects, align with stakeholders, align with platform teams, influence the roadmaps, ... 

The platforms and challenges to be tackles concern data engineering, data science and AI, reporting and BI, custom application development, compute platforms, data storage and querying, developer environments and code management, data governance, ... 

Main tasks: 

• First point of contact for information, problems, and challenges from the R&D groups around data. Routing of these questions to the right people and technologies and following up on the interactions. Share documentation, knowledge, insights, ... 
• Work out solutions (designs, architectures) for the problems of these people. Help them to a good solution for their problem, considering available building blocks, cost, time, effort of internal people, outcomes and benefits, ...  
• Manage functional analysts, solution architects, engineers, developers, ... internally and externally, to come to a good and efficient implementation that follows the design and guidelines. Rely on project managers where possible, fill the gaps where needed. 
• Support R&D people in self-service usage of the workbenches offered by ICT. Get them started to help themselves, follow up to ensure that they continue in the right direction. Help to switch to alternative technologies and platforms when appropriate. 
• Input into the architecture and roadmap of the platforms and workbenches to make them fit for purpose for the R&D community. Take ownership of the R&D specific parts of the roadmap. Drive implementation of those parts by the platform teams. 
• Product ownership of R&D data platforms, managing stakeholders, make sure the product is fit for purpose, vision and plan for future. 
• Take part in the Lab roadmap, Fab roadmap, … and connect those building blocks to the data space. 
• Manage Key-user facing documentation in data.imec.be (and/or follow up creation of documentation by the platform teams, make sure it is complete and consistent) 

What we do for you

We offer you the opportunity to join one of the world’s premier research centers in nanotechnology at its headquarters in Leuven, Belgium. With your talent, passion and expertise, you’ll become part of a team that makes the impossible possible. Together, we shape the technology that will determine the society of tomorrow.

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and proud of our open, multicultural, and informal working environment with ample possibilities to take initiative and show responsibility. We commit to supporting and guiding you in this process; not only with words but also with tangible actions. Through imec.academy, 'our corporate university', we actively invest in your development to further your technical and personal growth. 

We are aware that your valuable contribution makes imec a top player in its field. Your energy and commitment are therefore appreciated by means of a market appropriate salary with many fringe benefits. 

Who you are

• You are an effective, influential communicator and listener 
• You are an analytical thinker and problem solver 
• You are an engineering- and architecture-minded person by nature 
• You are a T-shaped profile: You combine a broad knowledge of technical and business domains, with the ability to go technically deep when needed 
• You care about the R&D people’s needs, and you are a good representative for their needs in the ICT organisation. You actively go out and network with R&D people to represent ICT in the R&D organisation. 
• You have experience and active knowledge of modern data stack technology and platforms. Experience and knowledge about custom applications development is a plus. 
• You have at least affinity with code. You have at least basic knowledge of data transformation and data visualisation code in python (Spark, Polars, Pandas, …). Hands on experience with code-based data engineering and data science is a strong asset. You understand SQL. A strong technical background is important. 
• Practical experience with Azure is a plus 
• Min 7 years of relevant experience 
• You have experience with managing people/team and with managing an ICT project 
• Having an R&D background or having worked in an R&D environment is a plus 

IMEC and its affiliates will not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than directly from a candidate. IMEC will consider unsolicited referrals and/or resumes submitted by vendors such as search firms, staffing agencies, professional recruiters, fee-based referral services and recruiting agencies (hereafter “Agency”) to have been referred by the Agency free of charge. IMEC will not pay a fee to any Agency that does not have a prior written agreement with IMEC, validated by its HR department, in place regarding a specific job opening and allowing to submit resumes.