Company Description
Founded in 1948, Lely is committed to a sustainable, profitable, and enjoyable future in agriculture. Driven by the challenges faced by farmers and the needs of cows, we develop high-quality robots and data systems that improve animal welfare, flexibility, and productivity on dairy farms. Our mission is to support sustainable food production.
For more than 30 years, we have been a global leader in the sale and service of automated systems for successive generations of dairy farmers. Every day, we inspire our colleagues to offer customers innovative solutions and to be a reliable partner for long-term advice and support. With our state-of-the-art Lely Campus in Maassluis and a global network of dedicated Lely Centers offering customized sales and service, Lely is active in more than fifty countries.
Job Description
At Lely, software is at the heart of the next generation of autonomous farming. Our robots, edge devices and cloud platforms work together to help dairy farmers operate more efficiently and sustainably.
As a Software Architect, you shape the technical direction of this ecosystem. You work closely with software engineers, product teams and other technical disciplines to design scalable solutions while helping teams continuously improve the way they build software. This is a hands-on architecture role where technical leadership, collaboration and software craftsmanship go hand in hand.
You are responsible for guiding architectural decisions across multiple domains while remaining closely connected to implementation. Whether you are defining architectural direction, supporting teams in making technical trade-offs, or contributing to critical parts of the solution yourself, your work directly influences the quality, scalability, and maintainability of our products.
Your main responsibilities include:
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Defining and evolving end-to-end software architectures across frontend, backend, integrations, and platform domains.
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Supporting development teams in making architectural decisions and balancing business needs, technical quality, and long-term maintainability.
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Contributing hands-on to solution design, prototyping, and critical implementations where your expertise adds the most value.
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Driving continuous improvements in areas such as scalability, modularity, technical debt reduction, and software quality.
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Coaching and mentoring engineers, helping teams strengthen their technical craftsmanship and architectural thinking.
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Collaborating closely with Product Management, UX, Data, and Platform teams to deliver solutions that create value for our customers.
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Explore how AI-powered engineering can improve software development and help teams adopt these technologies in a practical way.
Qualifications
You are an experienced software professional who enjoys working at both strategic and technical levels. You know how to create alignment across teams, can communicate complex technical concepts clearly, and enjoy helping others grow.
In addition, you bring:
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A bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
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Extensive experience as a Software Architect, Lead Engineer, or Senior Software Engineer with architectural responsibilities.
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A broad understanding of modern software development across multiple domains, such as frontend applications, backend services, APIs, cloud platforms, and DevOps practices.
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Experience designing scalable and maintainable software architectures in complex environments.
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The ability to balance innovation, technical constraints, and business priorities.
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Strong communication and stakeholder management skills within multidisciplinary Agile environments.
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Experience with technologies such as .NET, distributed systems, cloud platforms, CI/CD pipelines, and modern frontend frameworks is highly valuable.
Additional Information
Working at Lely means contributing to sustainable progress within one of the most innovative organizations in the Netherlands. You help make the agricultural sector more futureproof, and we ensure you have the space, resources, and support to do so.
- An international work environment that values collaboration, initiative, and diverse perspectives.
- A culture that encourages learning, experimentation, and ownership of ideas.
- Excellent employment conditions, including up to 8 weeks of vacation per year and a strong pension scheme.
- A Salary range of €6600 - €9400 gross per month, with clear opportunities for growth within the scale.
- Full ownership of your own development, with access to a wide range of courses through the Lely Academy.
- Daily access to outstanding sports facilities at the Lely Campus: an indoor gym, outdoor padel courts, basketball and volleyball courts, table tennis, and table football. You can join Hyrox workouts or sign up for personal training and challenge your colleagues during an active break.
- Fresh coffee and tea from our own barista (with milk from our own farm) and a healthy, affordable company restaurant.
Work-life balance
- A healthy work-life balance thanks to our hybrid working policy: you work at least three days a week on Campus, with flexible hours and plenty of opportunity to spend additional time onsite (between 06:00 and 20:00).
- A free shuttle bus that takes you to and from the metro station in Maassluis, ensuring your workday starts and ends smoothly.
- And of course: we love to celebrate! Whether it’s an anniversary or the annual Christmas party. At Lely, we know how to do it.
We are also proud that our vision and efforts have been recognized with the Rotterdam Entrepreneurs Award 2025.
Recruitment & selection agency, consultancy, and/or staffing agency?
We appreciate the interest, but we recruit all our candidates directly. We understand that as intermediaries, you want to present candidates for our great positions and contribute to our ambitions, but this is not how we have set up our recruitment process. This means that all unsolicited profiles offered on Lely vacancies will be treated as direct applications.
