Why are we here?

You may not know our name but we can guarantee you know our work – all we do has a positive impact on life, health and the environment.

Eurofins is by your side every day, from the food you eat to the medicines you rely on. We work with the biggest companies in the world, making sure the products they supply are safe, their ingredients are authentic and labelling is accurate.

As a fast paced growing environment we are looking for natural born leaders that inspire passion in unique individuals and are not afraid to take risks in order to achieve goals.  Life at Eurofins is a meritocracy, where people are empowered to make decisions and are rewarded for their success. We encourage independent thinkers who challenge the status quo and never accept the market’s or the company’s “usual way of doing things”.

We are searching for a Head of Architecture to our Eurofins Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) for Food & Environment Testing. The LIMS is fully built in-house by Eurofins teams of analysts, developers and engineers. It operates internally (on premise and cloud) and will be used by hundreds of Food & Environment Testing laboratories around the world.

As a Head of Architecture, your scope will be to manage a team of 20 architects (from functional, to software and data architects) across multiple locations in Europe and one location in India. You will be required to ensure that functional and non-functional requirements are transferred into functional & technical design artifacts, which are later implemented into the application. Ensuring that non-functional requirements are met (especially on performance and operational efficiency) and being accountable concerning technical standardization and operation efficiency.

Other responsibilities as the Head of Architecture would include:

• Develop guidelines for 10+ development teams concerning all kind of technical topics
• Manage solution/functional architects as well as technical architects and be able to abstract from high level business requirements to deep down technical performance aspects with efficiency 
• Ensure correct integration of project deliverables within the program and with other solutions
• Ensure that the appropriate artifacts are produced to enable implementation, delivery and maintenance
• Mentor and support the professional development of the architecture team

Governance

• Lead and continuously improve the architectural governance of the program
• Ensure that the solutions within the program are aligned with the architecture standard and policies defined by the architecture team
• Ensure adherence with the business and IT strategies of the organization; within the program
• Ensure ongoing architecture and solution integrity over time
• Manage and approve architectural changes brought about by requirement changes, issues and risks, budget and/or technical constraints
• Ensure IT investments are leveraged to their maximum by encouraging reuse of replicable solutions
• Provide guidance on optimizing the solution to deliver cost and productivity benefits
• Ensure that best practices are applied for the integration between applications

Technology stack

Our main technology stack consists of: .Net; .REST interfaces; WPF & Angular frontends; MS SQL Database; MS Windows VM; MS technology for data aggregation & reporting; Moving to Azure; Kerberos

What you must bring along additionally: Docker; Kubernetes; Azure Services; No-SQL esp. HDFS, Mongo; Kafka or similar; VRA or similar; OAuth2/OIDC

Are you our kind of extraordinary?

Following completion of a M.Sc.or equivalent in Information Technology or comparable field (Applied Math, Engineering, business degree with integrated IT, etc.), you will need a minimum of 15 years of experience in IT projects together with advanced experience in solution architecture design (ideally 10 years as Software or Solution Architect). You will require strong knowledge of Service Oriented Architecture style and principles with at least 5 years of experience in analysis and design. Also extensive working knowledge of UML.

In addition your experience should include:

• Strong knowledge of asynchronous integration patterns
• Advanced knowledge in the application of different architecture/design techniques (i.e. OO, Top-down, structured analysis, component-based design)
• Experience with Agile software development 
• Proven experience in security management, experience of oAuth/OpenID Connect is a plus
• Experience with architecting solutions for the Cloud would be beneficial
• Working experience with distributed teams or offshore teams 

The personal skills we are looking for in a Head of Architecture:

• Excellent stakeholder management, analytical and organizational skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills (concise writing and orally convincing) in an international environment
• Ability to influence architecture, technology and design decisions for all scales of applications for both present and future state architecture
• Ability to quickly learn new business and technical domains
• Ability to manage multiple projects / tasks concurrently and drive them to completion
• Ability to work effectively under pressure and identify ambiguity and drive for clarity
• Ability to travel 30% of his/her time

Eurofins Scientific is an international life sciences company, providing a unique range of analytical testing services to clients across multiple industries, to make life and our environment safer, healthier and more sustainable. From the food you eat, to the water you drink, to the medicines you rely on, Eurofins works with the biggest companies in the world to ensure the products they supply are safe, their ingredients are authentic and labelling is accurate. Eurofins believes it is a global leader in food, environmental, pharmaceutical and cosmetics products testing and in agroscience CRO services. It is also one of the global independent market leaders in certain testing and laboratory services for genomics, discovery pharmacology, forensics, CDMO, advanced material sciences and in the support of clinical studies.

In over just 30 years, Eurofins has grown from one laboratory in Nantes, France to over 47,000 staff across a network of more than 900 independent companies in over 50 countries and operating more than 800 laboratories. Eurofins offers a portfolio of over 200,000 analytical methods to evaluate the safety, identity, composition, authenticity, origin, traceability and purity of biological substances and products, as well as providing innovative clinical diagnostic testing services, as one of the leading global emerging players in specialised clinical diagnostics testing.

In 2019, Eurofins generated total revenues of EUR € 4.56 billion, and has been among the best performing stocks in Europe over the past 20 years.