Data & AI Architect

About us

We're a fast-growing international wholesale business supplying major retail partners across Australia, with operations spanning the US, Asia, and Southeast Asia. Our KL hub is five years established and one of the fastest-growing parts of the business — and it's accelerating.

This is the first dedicated technology hire in KL — the anchor of a function that will grow around you.

The role

You will own our AI, automation, and data engineering capability end to end — from the cloud data lake infrastructure that sits behind our BI platform through to the AI insight layer delivered into our sales and category teams' daily workflow. Our CEO sets strategic priorities and business context from Australia. You own every technical decision underneath that.

Reports directly to CEO. This is not a support role — you are the architect, the engineer, and the owner.

The stack you will own

• Cloud data lake infrastructure — currently managed externally; you bring it in-house and own the full architecture.

• Data ingestion pipelines from major retail partners and internal systems — reliability, transformation, and cost optimisation

• BI platform (currently evaluating options) — the analytics layer on top of the data lake; extend, improve, and help shape what we move to

• AI insight layer — automated exception alerts and commercial opportunity signals delivered directly into the sales and category teams' daily workflow

• LLM orchestration — routing tasks intelligently between open source models (for volume) and Claude API (for reasoning and judgement)

• No-code automation across the business — n8n and workflow integrations, including moving legacy Power Automate flows onto n8n

• OCR document pipelines — shipping, customs, and procurement documents into the ERP

• Full business review capability — weekly cashflow, rolling forecasts, variance analysis, and automated management reporting delivered into leadership review cycles

What we're looking for

We're looking for a data and AI engineer — someone who builds pragmatically, reaches for the right tool, and uses AI-assisted development to move fast. The background could be data engineering, AI/ML engineering, or a technical generalist who has gone deep on data infrastructure and automation. This role is about wiring systems together intelligently, not building software products from scratch.

• 5–8 years in data engineering, AI/automation engineering, or a technical role with deep hands-on build experience in a commercial environment

• Cloud data engineering — pipeline architecture, data lake design, and ingestion tooling

• BI platform depth — data model design and optimisation, not just building dashboards

• Fluent across the LLM landscape — open source vs API model decisions made with a clear cost-vs-capability rationale

• Production experience with no-code/low-code automation: n8n, Make, or Power Automate

• API integration — connecting external retail portals, ERPs, or third-party data sources

• ERP data experience — Microsoft Dynamics or similar (highly regarded)

• Experience evaluating, choosing, or migrating a BI or data platform (highly regarded)

• Self-directed and async-first — comfortable working directly with a CEO based in Australia (2–3 hours ahead of KL), with strong written English

Why this role

• Founding technology hire in a KL hub that's five years established and now doubling in size over the next 12 months — new office opening in February, senior leadership from head office spending significantly more time in KL

• Work closely with the CEO from day one — direct line, genuine technical autonomy, and a CEO who gives you the commercial context to make decisions well

• Own the full data and AI stack end to end — not siloed, not a support function

• International breadth across AU and Southeast Asian retail, US distribution, and broader Asian sourcing operations

• Base Salary + EPF, plus a one-month KPI bonus and a share of the global staff profit-share pool (weighted by salary)

• Permanent from day one with a standard three-month probation

• Clear growth path toward Head of Technology as the KL function expands