The posting
Who we are
Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS) is a brand of PNED G.I.E. an organisation created by the Luxembourg Government, to implement Luxembourg’s strategies in research, innovation, and digitalisation. LNDS enables value creation from secondary use of data, for public and private partners and supports the sharing and re-use of public sector data, in a trustable manner. The LNDS service portfolio includes know-how, capabilities, tools, infrastructure, and data services. Through efficient & responsible use of data and improving the secondary use of data, LNDS will support the acceleration of economic, ecological, and societal transitions. www.lnds.lu | LNDS on LinkedIn
Purpose of the job / project
Help design the data infrastructure that Luxembourg and its European partners rely on for secure, lawful access to sensitive data. The specifications you write will be implemented by organisations across Europe. This is a fixed-term position of 24 months, created to meet a sustained increase in architecture work across our EU project portfolio. You will work on one or more projects from that portfolio — currently including STORE-1PLUSMG, USE-1PLUSMG, SCAILED, the European Compliance Stack, DSSC2, COOPAIFA and PANDAI — with assignments set by portfolio priorities and evolving as projects start and close.
We are seeking an experienced Senior Solution Architect to lead the design and specification of large-scale federated data infrastructure, with a particular emphasis on data spaces. You will lead the design of solution architectures end to end, from requirements through to delivery support. You will contribute to and produce reference architectures, blueprints and interoperability profiles to support implementation by partner organisations across Europe. You will lead work packages where LNDS holds that responsibility and represent us in multi-partner consortia. Working with community frameworks such as Gaia-X, IDSA and DSSC.
What you will do
Solution design and architecture
- Design and own end-to-end solution architectures for assigned projects, covering system context, component and interface definition, data flows, storage strategy, protocols and tooling.
- Define non-functional requirements with the same rigor as functional ones: security, interoperability, scalability, availability, accountability, and auditability.
- Establish and maintain technical and organisational measures frameworks under Data Protection by Design and Default.
Specification, procurement and conformance
- Gather and consolidate functional and non-functional requirements from data providers, partner organisations and internal stakeholders.
- Analyse and document business constraints.
- Build reference architectures, blueprints and interoperability profiles that other organisations can implement without further interpretation.
Work package and task leadership in EU projects
- Represent LNDS in consortium technical discussions and contribute to achieving consensus among partners with different technical perspectives.
- Contribute architectural input to proposals for new calls, including effort estimation and work package design.
Technical leadership and mentoring
- Provide technical direction to development and operations teams implementing your designs and stay engaged through delivery rather than handing over a document.
- The role offers the opportunity to mentor junior architects: reviewing their artefacts, bringing them into consortium work, and helping them grow towards specification and framework of responsibility. An appetite for this is welcome, though it is not a requirement for the position.
Stakeholder engagement
- Engage stakeholders at national and European level: data providers, ministries, hospitals, research institutions, national authorities and consortium partners across the EU to elicit requirements and translate them into technical specifications that hold across organisations and jurisdictions.
- Explain architectural decisions and their consequences to non-technical stakeholders, including where a requirement cannot be met as stated and what the alternatives cost.
Regulatory alignment and risk
- Apply Data Protection by Design and Default throughout the architecture. Ensure architectural designs appropriately address applicable regulatory and compliance requirements.
- Identify architectural and technical risks early, quantify their impact, and propose mitigations that project boards can act on.
Who you are
- BSc or MSc in a scientific, technological or engineering discipline related to computer science, information technology or computing.
- 5 to 10 years working explicitly as a solution or enterprise architect on large-scale or federated data systems.
- Experience with distributed and federated architectures, APIs, cloud and container platforms, and infrastructure as-code.
- Understanding information security: authentication and authorisation, encryption, network segmentation, and how it shapes architectural decisions.
- Experience with TOGAF, ArchiMate or another enterprise architecture framework, and the discipline to keep artefacts current.
- Familiarity with agile delivery, particularly product and service ownership and Scrum.
- Able to move between several projects with competing demands and prioritise without dropping commitments.
- Collaborative and adaptable, and effective in a cross-functional and multicultural environment.
- Working knowledge of EU and LU data regulations such as GDPR, DGA, EHDS, the Data Act, the AI Act and NIS2 is a plus.
- Direct experience implementing or contributing to a data space framework (Gaia-X, IDSA, DSSC Blueprint) is a plus.
- Experience in EU-funded projects: work package or task leadership, deliverable ownership, consortium working is an advantage.
- Excellent communication skills in English. Working knowledge of one of Luxembourg's official languages (French, German or Luxembourgish) is a plus.
