Job Description

Lead Architect

Department: R&D

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Copenhagen

Reporting To: Director of Engineering

Description

Factbird helps manufacturers turn real-time production data into decisions they can actually act on. Since 2016, we've helped manufacturers in 28 countries cut waste, boost uptime, and run smarter — from the shop floor to the boardroom. Over 300 companies trust us to make sense of their operations, and we're a team of 80+ people across Copenhagen and the US who care about making complex things simple.

We're creating a new role at the top of our Engineering career ladder: Lead Architect. It's the senior end of our Technical Track — the rung above Tech Lead — and today it's a role we've deliberately left lightly defined, because we want the first person in it to help define it. You'll set Factbird's technical direction: architecture, tooling, and the multi-year technology bets that shape where the product goes next.

This is our most senior technical role, with no direct reports — your authority comes from judgment and track record, not the org chart. You'll work alongside our Tech Leads in Factbird's technical leadership group, partner closely with our Director of Engineering, and be the person other senior engineers go to when a decision is genuinely hard to reverse.

About the Role

As Lead Architect, you own Factbird's company-wide technical vision: the architecture our services run on, the tooling and standards our engineers use every day, and the multi-year technology strategy that ties it all together. You make — or sign off on — the high-stakes, hard-to-reverse architecture calls, and you're accountable for getting them right with the full context of where the business is headed, not just where the code is today.

You'll work across a team built on Rust, React, Node.js, and AWS, with AI-assisted development already a core part of how we ship. Some of what this role owns is already well-defined — reviewing RFCs, stewarding language and platform standards, setting the team's AI-tooling strategy. Some of it isn't yet: Factbird is still a growing company, and part of the job is helping us figure out what technical leadership at this level should look like as we scale.

You'll thrive here if you'd rather be trusted with genuinely hard calls than manage a team, and if you can hold both the technical detail and the commercial context — cost, risk, market direction — well enough to make a technology bet you can still defend a year later.

What you'll do

Architecture & technical strategy

• Own Factbird's multi-year technology strategy, and make the high-stakes architecture calls that are hard to reverse — with cost, risk, and business context factored in, not just engineering elegance
• Author and drive major RFCs from proposal through to an actual decision, and review the highest-risk architecture changes across the team
• Act as steward for our core languages and frameworks — setting standards, library choices, and the platform's overall shape
• Make build-vs-buy calls for new technical capabilities, and bring a clear point of view on emerging technologies worth adopting
• Define the observability, reliability, and security posture the platform is held to

Tooling & standards

• Set the team's technical tooling and platform standards, and keep them evolving as the stack and the company grow
• Define Factbird's strategy for AI-assisted development — which tools we adopt, how we balance velocity against code quality, security, and IP risk, and where we draw the line
• Shape engineering-wide quality philosophy and help set the technical bar used in hiring interviews
• Help define shared components and reference architecture that other engineers build on, rather than reinvent
• Give input into technical org design and team topology as Engineering scales

Technical leadership & mentorship

• Act as the trusted technical advisor to our Director of Engineering and the technical leadership group, partnering with Tech Leads and Product Leads on cross-team alignment
• Mentor senior engineers and Tech Leads toward architect-level thinking, without formal ownership of their people management
• Communicate technical vision and trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders, including leadership
• Identify technical risks to the business early, and say so before they become expensive
• Represent Factbird's technical thinking externally where it makes sense — a talk, a blog post, an open-source contribution — though this isn't a requirement on day one

What we’re looking for

We're looking for someone who's already earned this kind of trust somewhere else — someone whose technical opinions carry weight because they're right more often than not, and who'd rather solve the interesting, ambiguous problem than manage the team solving it.

The ideal background

• 8+ years of hands-on engineering experience, including real time spent as an architect or equivalent senior technical authority, not just a senior engineer with a bigger title
• A track record of owning multi-year technology strategy or platform architecture decisions that other teams had to live with — and that held up
• Has led major RFCs or architecture proposals cross-team, through genuine pushback, to an actual decision
• Comfortable making build-vs-buy and technology-adoption calls that account for cost, risk, and where the market is heading, not just what's technically interesting
• Experience mentoring senior engineers or Tech Leads toward architect-level thinking, without needing formal authority to do it
• Practical, current experience with AI-assisted development, and a clear point of view on where it genuinely helps versus where it creates risk

Why Factbird?

People are at the heart of everything we build. We believe great products come from empowered teams — and we work hard to create an environment where you can do your best work and have space for life beyond it.

Here's what you can look forward to:

• Flexible working hours: We trust you to manage your time. Life isn't one-size-fits-all, and neither is work.
• Competitive salary: We offer compensation that reflects your skills, experience, and impact.
• Internet reimbursement: Stay connected and productive, wherever you choose to work from.
• Thoughtful, human onboarding: We'll support you step by step, giving you the context, tools, and guidance you need to feel confident from day one.
• A career path that grows with you: Through bi-yearly Individual Development Plan conversations, we'll work together to shape a career journey that fits your ambitions.
• Company-wide gatherings & team days: We regularly come together across teams and regions to connect, celebrate, and align on what's next.
• A global, inclusive culture: We're proud of our diverse backgrounds and perspectives — and we actively celebrate them in how we work and collaborate.

We'd love to hear from you

If this role feels like a match, we'd be excited to hear from you and explore how you could help shape the future of data collection and production monitoring at Factbird.

And if someone in your network comes to mind who might be a great fit — feel free to share this opportunity with them.

Have questions? You can always reach out to Cristina Vartej at crva@factbird.com

At Factbird, we believe that great work starts with people feeling respected, valued, and included. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a workplace where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

All employment decisions at Factbird are made based on business needs, role requirements, and individual qualifications, without discrimination based on gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or family status, nationality, ethnic or social origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected under applicable European and local employment laws.

We celebrate diversity in all its forms and believe that different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences make our teams stronger and our work better. We warmly encourage all qualified candidates to apply and to bring their whole selves to Factbird.