AI-focused Data Architect
Data Architect - Do you want to contribute to the development of a new energy technology that can safely turn nuclear waste into emission-free energy? Are you excited about working in a hands-on deep-tech start-up team that aims to make a huge impact? Do you like complex challenges? Then, we might be just the company you are looking for!
Job description
We are looking for a driven AI-focused Data Architect to join our innovative and international team.
About Thorizon
At Thorizon, we’re a passionate team spread across Amsterdam and Lyon, all working together to develop new nuclear power solutions. We design and create frontier technology for Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs).
Our purpose is to accelerate the availability of clean energy and help solve the climate crisis.
We are in the development phase and aim to solidify our design through analyses, simulations, experiments, prototyping, and partnerships. At Thorizon, we believe a strongly coupled multidisciplinary technology development requires a culture of full openness and transparency. That’s why we foster values like unity, communication, and support to ensure we grow together as a team while achieving our purpose.
Your mission
Are you motivated to provide your expertise and know-how in efficient data management to the ongoing design studies for the reactors Thorizon is developing? Are you passionate about designing cutting-edge data-management tools, with the goal of designing nuclear reactors for the future? Do you get energized by innovation, and transforming ideas into tangible solutions? Are you a teambuilder that can get the most out of technical experts and specialists, in an innovative and multidisciplinary development environment?
Thorizon is searching for an experienced AI-focused Data Architect to lead the design, governance, and standards of our enterprise data ecosystem.
Our organization aims to establish a structured approach to data management and applications. We intend to design and implement a data infrastructure centered around a unified, scalable, and secure Data Hub strategy in order to accelerate our growth and prepare for the implementation of AI models, while ensuring seamless and comprehensive data sharing and interoperability.
The Data Architect will work closely with our IT support partner and our AI development partners, while collaborating closely with our design engineers and experts in the key disciplines of reactor design and validation.
This is a cross-functional, high-impact role with key responsibility for our accelerating development.
This role is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands or in Lyon, France.
In this role you will:
Structure engineering data and knowledge:
You will define and enforce data governance standards covering data quality, access, security, lifecycle management, and traceability.
You will build the foundations of Thorizon’s information architecture by mapping key engineering data domains such as design, simulations, tests, requirements, safety, and documentation, and by defining shared models, taxonomies, and metadata structures.
You will be expected to bring structure where none currently exists, while respecting the realities of engineering practice.
Connect the engineering lifecycle:
You will design the digital thread that links requirements, functions, design decisions, simulations, validation tests, safety evidence, and regulatory deliverables.
This includes defining business objects, their relationships, and traceability rules across the full engineering lifecycle, ensuring that engineering justification can be followed, audited, and reused.
Enable AI-ready engineering data:
You will improve how engineering data is structured, governed, and reused across the organisation.
This includes improving data quality, harmonizing nomenclature, reducing duplication, structuring documentation, and enriching metadata at scale.
You will contribute to the design of Thorizon’s engineering knowledge system, including knowledge models, knowledge graphs, and ontologies, and define the foundations for AI use cases such as search, retrieval, and document generation with fully traceable sources.
You should be comfortable working at the boundary between structured data, unstructured technical documentation, and emerging AI systems.
Ensure trust, security, and adoption:
You will ensure that data systems are secure, compliant, and aligned with cybersecurity requirements in a safety critical environment where traceability and integrity are non-negotiable.
You will ensure that the data management system complies with export control requirements, where applicable.
You will work closely with system design teams in mechanics, chemistry, neutronics, thermal hydraulics, IT and cybersecurity partners, AI development partners, and safety and licensing teams.
This requires strong alignment skills across disciplines with very different constraints and priorities.
You will also stay connected to external initiatives such as IAEA and Euratom and follow developments in data engineering and AI applied to complex engineering systems, without relying on external maturity to define internal direction.
This is a role where success depends less on defining elegant models, and more on making systems operational in a real, fast moving engineering environment with incomplete structure.
About you:
We are looking for someone who has already operated in complex technical environments where data structure is not given but must be actively designed and maintained.
This role is not suitable for someone looking for a purely executional data engineering position or a well-defined enterprise data architecture framework.
You bring:
At least 5 years of experience, ideally up to 10 years, in data architecture or data engineering in complex technical or regulated environments.
Proven ability to design data models and governance structures that survive real usage in engineering contexts.
Experience working across disciplines and translating between different technical domains.
Comfort operating without fully defined upstream structure, while still producing reliable systems.
Beyond technical skills, how you work is critical:
You work with openness: you make assumptions explicit, surface ambiguity early, and engage constructively with disagreement.
You take responsibility: you own problems end to end and do not depend on perfect organisational clarity to act.
You contribute to unity across teams: you actively connect disciplines and reduce fragmentation rather than reinforcing local optimisation.
You are pragmatic: you prioritise systems that function in reality over theoretically elegant architecture, and you are comfortable iterating in environments where structure is still emerging.
Experience in AI applied to engineering or knowledge systems is a strong advantage, as is experience in highly regulated or safety critical industries.
What makes this role unique:
You will define the knowledge backbone of a nuclear deep tech program at an early but structurally formative stage.
Your work will directly shape how engineers design, validate, and justify a new reactor system.
You will operate at the intersection of engineering physics, data architecture, and AI at system level.
You will be expected to create clarity in an environment where the operating system is still being built.
What can you expect from us?
Dynamic and ambitious teams of nuclear technology professionals committed to solving today’s energy challenges.
A fast-moving VC backed deep tech environment where engineering decisions have real consequences.
Opportunity to work on a technology that aims to reduce carbon emissions and nuclear waste streams.
Competitive salary and an employee profit-sharing plan.
International work experience.
Office in the heart of Amsterdam or Lyon next to the Central station.
Does this sound like a match?
We are looking forward to your application! Send your application to : recruitment@thorizon.com
Thorizon takes responsibility to make our company more inclusive. We need all ideas to realize our mission and want everyone to feel welcome in our team.