Product Architect

Hey, we're Founders Factory

Founders Factory builds and funds startups together with exceptional entrepreneurs and the world's leading companies. Headquartered in London and operating globally, Founders Factory backs visionary founders with capital, dedicated support from a team of expert operators, and unrivalled access to a coalition of industry leading corporate partners. Since 2015, FF has backed 450+ portfolio companies helping them to secure over 500 enterprise pilots with blue chip corporate partners such as Aviva, Northwestern Medicine, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, and HSBC.

The Opportunity:

We are looking for a Product Architect who is passionate about building the future of industrial occupational hygiene, starting in mining.

Climate change is no longer a background risk for the people who work underground or on site - it's an active occupational hazard. Miners (and, increasingly, construction workers) are exposed to extreme heat and degraded air quality, driving up rates of heat stress and pulmonary disease. Dust is also a major risk especially silicates and asbestos. The clean energy transition is demanding more rare metals, the mining of which can create toxic dust. Ensuring workers have accurate and timely data means workplaces can be compliant and safe.

You'll be working on our new venture: a medical-grade wearable device paired with a real-time data dashboard, designed to monitor at-risk profiles among miners first, with construction workers to follow, alert to risky exposure and flag early signs of physiological strain, and give employers the visibility they need to intervene before a health incident becomes a fatality.

Who are we looking for?

As a Product Architect, you will take this idea from zero to a venture-backable business. You'll bring 5-10 years of experience, ideally in or selling into the mining sector, whether at an OEM supplier, a control systems technology provider, or a safety company, so you understand how mining companies buy, deploy and roll out new technology on site. You will work closely with the founder to shape strategy, validate problem spaces, define user stories, identify and test product concepts, build MVPs, and find early product market fit. This is a hands on, high ownership role. You'll operate across product, design, growth, operations and tech, moving fast, making decisions, and focusing relentlessly on what creates the most leverage at each stage of a venture. You have a varied skill set, relevant domain knowledge, and will have demonstrated an interest in tech and entrepreneurship. You will be an advocate for FF's values and mission and be committed to supporting founders. You are opinionated but evidence led, creative but commercial, and comfortable operating in ambiguity. You care deeply about building products people actually want and businesses that can scale.

This is a full-time, permanent role with a salary of AUD 140,000-180,000. Our preferred locations are Perth or Sydney/Newcastle. The Founder is based in Newcastle.

Your responsibilities:

• Owning the end-to-end early build: from problem definition and MVP scoping through to shipping, testing, and iteration

• Getting products into users' hands fast, using lean, experimental approaches to validate assumptions and generate learning

• Using your mining network to open doors for site pilots, and working with OEMs, control systems providers and safety partners on integration and distribution

• Shaping the customer experience and product vision, balancing user needs with commercial and technical realities

• Setting up the operational foundations of the venture: suppliers, manufacturing partners, compliance processes and pilot logistics

• Working closely with founder to challenge thinking, sharpen focus, and drive momentum, especially when things feel unclear or uncomfortable

• Helping the venture progress through studio stage gates, supporting founder towards strong, evidence-backed IC decisions

• Spotting opportunities early by staying close to market dynamics, emerging tech, and real user behaviour

• Communicating clearly and regularly, sharing progress, learnings, trade-offs, and recommendations with founders and the wider studio

Required skills, experience and mindset:

• 5-10 years' experience, with a track record of bringing products to market

• You're coming from a background in mining, ideally at an OEM supplier, control systems technology provider or safety company that sells into mining companies; experience in occupational hygiene, heavy industry, digital health or wearables is also relevant

• You understand how mining companies buy technology: procurement, site approvals, safety sign-off and the people involved

• You think in systems, not just devices: you understand how a sensor on someone's body connects to a dashboard an employer actually checks, and you understand what "real-time" needs to mean when the risk is heatstroke, not a missed notification

• You are familiar with the regulatory clearance or licensing process for a health or safety product and know that compliance isn't a box to tick at the end - it shapes the product from day one

• Driving momentum by subscribing to lean methodologies and an experimental approach, you prioritise speed, learning, and focus over perfection

• Comfortable wearing multiple hats (product, design, tech, growth, operations) and knowing when to pull in specialist support

• Strong technical mindset, with the ability to build no-code / low-code solutions, prototypes, or proofs of concept to accelerate validation

• Commercially curious with the ability to think about ICPs, value propositions, pricing hypotheses, and early GTM alongside product

• Bonus if you have research or clinical exposure to occupational health and safety

We value people who:

• Thrive in ambiguity and enjoy solving messy problems

• Quick thinking and intuition, someone who can balance creativity with objective data

• A passion for creating products people love, caring about product performance is key

• The ability to adapt and operate in an ambiguous environment

• Comfortable with taking calculated risks and learning fast

• Wanting to continuously improve your skills and productivity, challenging yourself when you can

• Strong leadership that drives outcomes

• Being approachable and optimistic

What this role is not

• Not a pure designer or software/hardware engineer

• Not a consultant writing decks from the sidelines

• Not a 9-5 role

Salary: AUD 140,000-180,000 per annum