Chief Architect

Chief Architect Own the long-term architecture of our SaaS HCM platform. As Chief Architect at CatalystOne, you set the north star, enable teams with clear guardrails, and shape the future of our products. CatalystOne is building the next generation of HCM products for the Nordic and Northern European market. To accelerate our increasingly AI-driven journey, we are now looking for a Chief Architect to own the long-term architectural direction of our product portfolio. This is a strategic architecture role. You will shape the target architecture, guide teams toward it through clear guardrails, and ensure that speed, quality, and compliance improve together, not at the expense of each other . What you will do As Chief Architect at CatalystOne, you will: • Own and evolve the overall product architecture and target state across our HCM platform. • Own, maintain and evolve our architectural north star, balancing long-term sustainability with near-term delivery needs. • Curate our Technology Radar, providing transparency and guidance on technology choices. • Take ownership of our architecture toolset (principles, patterns, reference architectures, and decision records) that gives product teams practical guardrails and decision support as they move toward the target architecture. • Enable autonomous, agile teams by setting constraints that increase flow, predictability, and compliance. • Act as a strategic partner in the product trio, collaborating closely with Product and Engineering leadership. • Support architectural decision-making across teams by enabling fast, well-documented decisions close to where the work happens. • Represent architectural perspectives in strategic discussions within the CTO leadership group and Executive Management Team. What this role focuses on: This role is centred on product-wide, long-term architecture and aims to provide tools and guardrails to Product teams when doing individual implementations or customer-specific designs. You will lead through clear principles and enablement, using influence, clarity, and trust to help teams make great architectural decisions. As AI becomes an increasingly important part of how our software is built and operated, this role helps ensure we adopt AI in ways that increase effectiveness while maintaining the right guardrails for quality, security, compliance, and control. The role is an individual contributor position, reporting to the CTO and is part of the CTO leadership team. The role has broad impact and close collaboration across Product and Engineering. What we are looking for: We believe the right candidate has: • Deep experience designing and evolving large-scale product architectures in a SaaS environment. • Strong systems thinking and the ability to reason about complex socio-technical systems. • Strong domain leadership skills, execution skills and a proven ability to influence senior engineers and leaders through clarity, trust, and strong reasoning. • Experience in working through architectural guardrails that increase delivery speed and compliance simultaneously, including for AI-enabled and agentic development. • Comfort operating at both strategic and tactical levels, translating vision into actionable guidance. • A pragmatic mindset: strong architecture matters, and outcomes matter too. • Excellent communication skills and the ability to create shared understanding across disciplines. If you’re excited about the role but don’t meet every single requirement, we still encourage you to apply. We value potential, learning mindset, and collaboration as much as past titles. What it's like to work in CatalystOne: You will join a company with strong Nordic roots, a growing international footprint, and a culture that values both results and people. We are in the middle of an architectural and organisational transformation, moving toward clearer product boundaries, stronger autonomy, and reduced cognitive load for teams. You will report directly to the CTO and be a member of the CTO’s leadership group, with real influence on product and technology strategy. Location & Language: This role is based in our Oslo office, and can be performed in a hybrid setup. English is our working language. Benefits As well as your salary, you’ll receive: Time Off That Matters: Enjoy a solid 25 days of vacation per year to recharge and regroup. Financial and Health Security: Benefit from a comprehensive pension and insurance package, plus private healthcare. Your Well-being, Your Way: Take advantage of our wellness contribution to stay on top of your health. Tech Tools for Efficiency: Get the job done with a choice of laptop (mac / PC), mobile phone & subscription, and a home internet allowance.. Easy Commuting: Offset your commute costs with our public transport allowance. Lunch Made Easy: Skip the hassle and grab a bite at our staff canteen. Flexible Work Setup: Hybrid for your life-work balance. CatalystOne does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. CatalystOne will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to the specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to CatalystOne on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary. Department Technology Role Technical Lead Locations Oslo office HQ Remote status Hybrid About CatalystOne CatalystOne is a Scandinavian leader of HCM-software with over 250 employees throughout Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and India. We have, since 2004, built a strong value-based company driven by our customers' success. Our culture is characterized by a unique combination of emphasis on results and on people. We have experienced high growth in recent years and have the ambition to continue this growth both in Scandinavia and in other North-European countries. CatalystOne is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, colour, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic. Fair Screening in our Recruitment process To promote fairness and reduce unconscious bias, candidates are anonymised during the initial screening stage. This means applications are reviewed based on skills, experience, and relevance to the role – not personal characteristics. Once shortlisted, recruiters review the full candidate profile and engage directly with candidates throughout the process. Use of AI We use AI‑supported tools in parts of our recruitment process to help structure and summarise applications, support screening, and transcribe interviews. These tools assist our recruiters but do not make decisions on their own – all evaluations and hiring decisions are made by people. Founded in 2004 Co-workers 250+