Major Duties
We are seeking a Systems Architect to join our Pre-Automation Services Team, where you will play a critical role collaborating with our customers to shape the front-end architecture of advanced automated manufacturing systems. This is a conceptual and pre-design role that defines the digital and physical frameworks guiding all downstream engineering, controls, and software activities.
Your core mission is to determine what should be built and how it should function, using systems thinking, simulation, and data-driven decision making to architect solutions that are scalable, integrated, and future-ready. This is not a detailed design, controls, or implementation role. This is a strategic design role at the intersection of systems engineering, industrial engineering, and advanced automation, focused on upstream system architecture, risk reduction, and requirements development.
You will work directly with customers and internal teams to define high-level concepts, assess technical feasibility, and develop architectural content that serve as the blueprint for future automation programs.
Specific Responsibilities
Lead the conceptual system architecture of advanced manufacturing platforms, integrating automation, digital systems, data, physical equipment, and operations in close collaboration with customers
• Define system boundaries, material and data flows, interfaces, and functional blocks based on customer goals and future state use cases, and that serve as the foundation for follow-on detailed engineering design
• Develop clear, actionable system requirements and acceptance criteria that are traceable to customer needs, business goals, and regulatory requirements
• Conduct simulation, modeling, and studies to explore architectural options, capacity strategies, and system performance scenarios
• Leverage data-driven methods to validate design assumptions, identify risks, and optimize architectural outcomes before handoff to design teams
• Proactively identify and mitigate early-stage product, process, design, integration, performance, and technology risks through proof-of-concept work or conceptual validation
• Engage stakeholders, including customers and internal teams, to understand use cases, digital maturity, and future systems needs
• Collaborate with engineering, controls, IT, operations, and sales to ensure architecture aligns with customer's long-term strategic goals and execution capabilities
• Produce architectural deliverables, including system user requirements documents (URSs), functional design specification documents (FRSs), functional block diagrams, and early risk registers
• Update and evolve architectural requirements and assumptions as system understanding grows and scope evolves
• Contribute to enterprise-wide frameworks for smart manufacturing, digital enablement, and Information Technology (IT)/Operational Technology (OT) integration
Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Systems, Industrial, Mechanical, Software, or Electrical Engineering or equivalent. Master's or MBA is an asset.
• 7+ years of experience in systems architecture, automation strategy, or conceptual design of complex manufacturing systems
• Knowledge of:
- Systems engineering principles (requirements development, interface management, V-model, risk analysis and mitigation
- Simulation tools (Plant Simulation, or equivalent)
- Industrial automation systems (robotics, PLCs, SCADA, MES, data acquisition, I/O)
- Data and integration protocols (OPC, Ethernet/IP, etc.)
- Vertical integration layers above core automation systems (MES, SCADA, ERP, cloud/edge platforms, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc.)
- Smart factory frameworks (Industry 4.0, Digital Twin concepts, etc.)
• Comfortable using Microsoft 365 suite of tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Project)
• Strategic, systems-level thinker with the ability to distill complexity into clarity
• Confident communicator who can align technical and non-technical stakeholders
