Chief Architect

Job Description

Fugro is the world’s leading Geo‑data specialist, operating at the intersection of geospatial intelligence, advanced engineering, and data‑driven innovation. As we accelerate our global technology transformation, we are looking for a visionary Chief Architect to define and drive our end‑to‑end technology architecture. In this senior leadership role, you will shape the future of Fugro’s platforms, data capabilities, and digital ecosystem—ensuring our solutions are scalable, secure, and ready for the next decade of Geo‑data innovation. 

Based in Nootdorp (NL) and reporting to the Global Director of Technology, you will work closely with the CIO, Global Business Line Directors, and senior technical leaders across the organisation.

Your role

• You define Fugro's Technology architecture vision, standards and multi-horizon roadmap;

• You act as the authority for major technology investments, design decisions and long-term sustainability;

• You establish a company-wide architectural practice with clear principles and mechanisms to enable product delivery autonomy with guardrails;

• You design complex, integrated solutions across geospatial platforms, subsurface scanning, edge operations, HPC workloads, and data product services; 

• You create reference architectures and design patterns that enable modularity, reuse, and scalability; 

• You set the architectural direction for data platforms, analytics, AI enablement, and hybrid cloud strategies; 

• You govern Fugro’s domain ontology across geospatial, subsurface, vision, and temporal data; 

• You own security architecture principles, including zero‑trust and data sovereignty compliance; 

• You engage with clients as a peer architect, co‑designing solutions and guiding their platform evolution; 

• You mentor a global community of architects and lead engineers, acting as a trusted advisor to senior leadership. 

Your track record

• You are very familiar with geospatial systems;

• You have proven experience building data platorms, AI/ML infrastructure, cybersecurity and scaling data driven technology in high-growth environments;

• You have extensive experience in progressive technology leadership roles, ideally as principal architect or orgnisational technology lead;

• You demonstrate a proven ability to design and deliver enterprise‑scale architecture in global, multi‑domain environments; 

• You bring deep hands‑on expertise in solutions and technology architecture, with the ability to dive into technical detail; 

• You understand cloud architecture, including cloud-native patterns, containerisation and serverless;

• You lead stakeholders from boardroom to engineering with clarity, confidence, and authority; 

• You partner with clients to co‑design solutions and influence long‑term platform direction; 

• You anticipate market and technology trends and translate them into actionable, phased roadmaps.

What Fugro offers

• A competitive salary; 

• A company car or a mobility allowance; 

• A bonus, the allocation if which is determined based on carefully established guidelines within Fugro; 

• 29 holidays per year based on a fulltime employment (of which 4 are appointed by Fugro management) and the possibility to purchase 12 additional days;   

• Extensive career & training opportunities both nationally and internationally; 

• Flexible working hours and the ability to work from home in accordance with your manager and corporate policies; 

• Commuting allowance; 

• Modern pension scheme; 

• Collective health insurance; 

• Possibility to register with our corporate fitness plan; 

• Coaching options through our EAP (Employee Assistance Program). 

Are you interested? 

Please visit our Company Page to find out more on what it is like to work at Fugro. 

If you have any further questions, please contact Umit Nesar, Corporate Recruiter, tel. +31 (0)6 -81 41 07 68 

After you have applied  

• You will receive an automated confirmation-email of the receipt of your application; 

• When we see a match, we will invite you for the first interview within a couple of days. Of course, you will also receive a message if we will not invite you;   

• After a successful first round, you will be invited for the second round; 

• If we are both still positive after the second interview, we will make you an offer and with that we hope to welcome you at Fugro!

Disclaimer for recruitment agencies:

Fugro does not accept any unsolicited applications from recruitment agencies. Acquisition to Fugro Recruitment or any Fugro employee is not appreciated.