Head of Platform Architecture

At Foundational, we're building with people who want to own something — to do work that matters, in an environment where what you ship is what counts.

The people who thrive here

• Take ownership before they're asked. They see the gap and close it.
• Operate with a high degree of judgment. We move fast, and good judgment travels farther than a playbook.
• Communicate directly – concise, clear, and candid, especially when stakes are high.
• Hold a high bar for themselves first, then for everyone around them.
• Are genuinely energized by hard problems in physical, real-world environments. Energized — not just interested.
• Stay effective when things are ambiguous, changing, or under pressure. That's the job.

This is a place for people who want to build something that has never existed before and leave a clear mark on it.

Skills

• You have architected and shipped a manufacturing OS, MES, or ERP system from the ground up at least twice — not configured an existing one, not inherited one mid-build.
• You have designed data models and system architecture for production scheduling, inventory management, and quality tracking in a real manufacturing environment.
• You have integrated shop-floor systems — PLCs, SCADA, robotics controllers, sensors — with higher-level business systems, and you understand the failure modes on both sides.
• You have made build-versus-buy calls on ERP or MES components under real time and budget pressure, and can defend the tradeoffs you chose.
• You have designed systems for environments where downtime stops physical production, not just a website, and you architect for that failure mode.
• You write and review code yourself – this is a hands-on architecture role, not a slides-and-standards role.
• You have scaled a system from a single site to multiple sites without a rewrite, and can talk concretely about what you would do differently next time.

Competencies

These are the behavioral patterns that predict success here — in practice, under pressure.

• Accountability – You own outcomes. If something's off track, you say so and fix it.
• Bias for action – You ship. You iterate. You move toward the hard thing.
• Clarity of communication – Direct and concise, especially when it counts.
• Learning agility – You get up to speed fast in unfamiliar territory.
• Resilience – You stay sharp when things are hard, ambiguous, or moving fast.
• High standards – You raise the bar rather than match it — and hold yourself to it first.

Read the job posting on the Foundational Industries site

Source: the Foundational Industries Ashby job board. We last checked this job 2 h ago. We first saw it 8 days ago. A job on a job board does not always mean that the team interviews people now. We found this job board in a public list. We did not yet compare it with the careers page of the company.