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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Onsite
Rockwell Automation is a global technology leader focused on helping the world’s manufacturers be more productive, sustainable, and agile. With more than 28,000 employees who make the world better every day, we know we have something special. Behind our customers - amazing companies that help feed the world, provide life-saving medicine on a global scale, and focus on clean water and green mobility - our people are energized problem solvers that take pride in how the work we do changes the world for the better.
We welcome all makers, forward thinkers, and problem solvers who are looking for a place to do their best work. And if that’s you we would love to have you join us!
Job Description
As Senior Solution Architect for Autonomous Operations, you will lead the technical architecture of industrial transformation opportunities and consulting engagements with responsibility for providing technical leadership, mentoring solution consultants, and influencing cross-functional teams. Working closely with AO consultants, you will translate business priorities into future operating architectures and practical implementation roadmaps. You will combine deep technical expertise, strategic thinking and executive communication to connect advances in industrial AI and automation with Rockwell and partner capabilities.
Your Responsibilities:
Solution Design and Architecture
• Support discovery, qualification and solution positioning by identifying where Autonomous Operations can deliver credible operational and business value for strategic opportunities.
• Develop architectures that connect business value drivers and operational decisions to capabilities across field devices, control, industrial data, manufacturing operations and enterprise systems.
• Determine where intelligence, optimisation and decision execution should sit across control, edge and cloud. Explain trade-offs in latency, reliability, cybersecurity, human oversight and integration with existing operations.
• Evaluate how agentic AI, adaptive control, software-defined automation, orchestration and physical AI or robotics could evolve client architectures. Distinguish capabilities available today from emerging technologies and roadmap dependencies.
• Map required capabilities to Rockwell and partner technologies, including relevant control, industrial data, MES and production logistics platforms. Define data models and integration patterns, identify gaps and sequence a feasible roadmap aligned with Rockwell strategy.
Stakeholder Engagement
• Work alongside AO consultants throughout substantive client engagements to develop the transformation thesis, test technical assumptions and translate priority business problems into architectural choices.
• Lead architecture discussions with CTOs and senior operations, engineering and IT stakeholders. Explain complex technical choices in business terms and show how Rockwell capabilities can support the required outcomes.
Implementation Feasibility & Risk Assessment
• Partner with delivery leads to validate feasibility, scope, dependencies, estimates and technical risks before commitments are made to clients.
• Translate blueprints into implementation work packages and guide delivery architects and engineering teams as solutions progress into execution.
• Define requirements for data ingestion, contextualisation, analytics and integration with control and operational workflows, drawing on specialists for detailed implementation.
• Establish clear boundaries for automated decisions, human intervention and closed-loop execution, including validation and assurance requirements.
• Agree architecture and engineering standards with delivery teams, including testing, deployment, maintainability and secure integration.
• Maintain technical continuity between consulting, pre-sales and delivery, resolving architectural issues and assumptions as the solution develops.
• Ensure proposed solutions meet industrial requirements for scalability, performance, cybersecurity and operational reliability.
Technical Leadership
• Develop reusable functional blueprints and reference architectures for priority industries and business functions. Start from existing Rockwell architectures and extend them through lessons from client engagements and emerging technology.
• Mentor architects and engineers through joint client work, architecture reviews and knowledge sharing, helping the team build strategic and executive advisory skills.
• Build relationships with Rockwell technical communities and product teams. Bring specialist expertise into engagements and feed client requirements and architectural gaps back into portfolio discussions.
The Preferred - You Might Also Have:
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical field.
• Willingness to travel up to 50%.
• Typically 6–10 years of relevant experience in industrial solution architecture, consulting or systems integration, with demonstrated leadership of complex client architecture engagements supporting consultative opportunity development
• Deep expertise is required in at least one domain below, supported by broad understanding across the rest.
• Industrial operations: control, MES/MOM, production logistics and asset performance
· Industrial data: edge connectivity, OT-IT protocols, time-series data, contextualisation, data models, governance and analytics
• Architecture: OT, edge, cloud, enterprise integration and cybersecurity
• Autonomy: AI, optimisation, orchestration, robotics and closed-loop execution
• Implementation: architecture assurance, deployment patterns, validation & implementation feasibilityEvidence of strategic architecture thinking, executive communication and the ability to translate business problems into feasible technical choices. Experience coordinating specialists, leading technical teams and mentoring colleagues.
Preferred qualifications and experience:
• Experience developing transformation blueprints or technology roadmaps alongside business and industry consultants.
• Familiarity with Rockwell and partner technologies such as FactoryTalk Data Mosaix, FactoryTalk Optix, Cognite Data Fusion, Plex MES or OTTO autonomous mobile robots. Expertise across every platform is not required. Experience with cloud and edge architectures, APIs, industrial integration patterns and data modelling.
• Practical experience with Python, SQL or integration services, sufficient to assess implementation choices and guide engineering teams.
• Experience with time-series data, contextualisation and industrial data governance.
• Experience in mining or food and beverage, or another relevant industrial sector. Industry consultants will provide complementary business and process expertise.
• Relevant cloud, architecture or industrial platform certifications.
• Experience supporting both consultative opportunity development and implementation delivery.
• Applied experience in industrial AI, agentic systems, advanced process control, orchestration or robotics, Physica AI with an understanding of validation and deployment constraints.
• Experience designing industrial cybersecurity, access management and reliable integration across OT and IT environments.
• A record of building reusable architectures, developing colleagues and collaborating across technical disciplines.
• Experience in asset performance management, production optimisation or autonomous production logistics.
Innovation mindset
You will bring curiosity and independent technical judgement to the evolution of industrial autonomy. We are looking for someone who can anticipate how technology will change operations, challenge assumptions and turn that thinking into credible architectures and achievable roadmaps.
What we offer:
• The opportunity to shape Autonomous Operations architectures with clients and contribute to Rockwell’s industrial autonomy direction.
• A collaborative environment with access to technical specialists, professional development and career progression.
• Competitive compensation and benefits.
• A dynamic and supportive work environment that encourages innovation and growth.
• Opportunities for professional development and career advancement.
• Competitive compensation and benefits package.
At Rockwell Automation we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you're excited about this role but your experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right person for this or other roles.
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Rockwell Automation’s hybrid policy aligns that employees are expected to work at a Rockwell location at least Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays unless they have a business obligation out of the office.