Engineering Manager - Mechatronics/Hardware

About us
Vow is a food company - a very different one. We’re creating real meat products from animal cells instead of the animal itself.

We’re bringing together cutting edge innovations in science, engineering, culinary and design to make sustainable food that’s both irresistible and available to billions of people worldwide.

The role:
We’re looking for an experienced Engineering Manager with a focus on Mechatronics/Hardware to join our rapidly growing startup.

You’ll lead multidisciplinary projects by leveraging your technical experience, ability to align & motivate team members, and ability to work with stakeholders across the organisation. You'll be responsible for hiring, retaining, growing and leading world-class engineers across our team. You’ll help develop and drive technical & product strategy across a variety of R&D areas, all with the goal of producing delicious, scalable cultured meat products as well as the infrastructure (e.g. automation, data systems, biological approaches) that makes it all possible.

You’ll get to work in a modern technology stack built on technologies like Linux, OpenTrons, Zaber, React, Postgres, TypeScript, Docker, and AWS, and get to work rapidly without a bunch of legacy systems overhead to contend with.

You’ll work with a world-class, multidisciplinary team to make delicious food, stop climate change, preserve our world’s biodiversity, and end the unnecessary suffering of animals.

You have:

• 4+ years relevant professional experience designing, building, shipping and maintaining advanced electro-mechanical-software systems in mission-critical or user-facing systems.
• Degree in Mechatronics Engineering or related disciplines (Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Automation etc), or equivalent additional professional experience to demonstrate excellence in your craft.
• Experience in hiring world-class technical talent, including designing interviews, conducting interviews, and pitching the role to candidates.
• Experience supporting engineers in their growth (both hard & soft skills) & work satisfaction.
• Experience developing and communicating technical strategy that clearly, simply articulates the problem & solution approach, with a clear focus on pragmatically delivering clear outcomes to our mission as quickly as possible.
• Experience leading technical teams in day-to-day execution, including through effective process, regular communication, solving for team skill gaps, and anything else that your team needs from you for success.
• A desire to remain deeply technical, including by continuing to upskill in relevant technical areas and spending some of your time (~10-20%) shipping technology, to maintain an up-to-date and keen understanding of real world technical challenges of your team.
• Strong alignment with our company values, listed here.
• Bonus if you have:
• A multidisciplinary technical background that crosses multiple parts of the technology stack, whether it be hardware, embedded software, backend, frontend, etc. We’d prefer generalists to specialists, given our deep tech stack.
• A personal or professional connection with food and the culinary world.
• A personal or professional connection with cell biology & the natural sciences.
• Experience leading deeply technical R&D projects.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams.
• You will:
• Guide & lead engineers building automation & cell culture systems to dramatically accelerate the pace of cultured meat R&D.
• Create and run hiring processes to bring the best engineering talent to Vow.
• Provide caring and effective support to grow engineers in their key growth areas (both hard & soft skills) and to support their happiness & satisfaction at work.
• Develop and communicate technical strategy to complex, multidisciplinary technical challenges, whether it be developing laboratory automation, modelling biological systems, or using machine learning approaches to rapidly screen cells & their ideal growth conditions.
• Lead technical teams in day-to-day execution, including through effective process, regular communication, and team support.
• Review work of your fellow engineers to improve the quality of technical work and grow their skills.
• Meaningfully contribute to our company culture and organisational processes.
• Have significant autonomy to identify and work on the most valuable problems you see.
• Learn about biology, hardware, design, and culinary from our multidisciplinary team and leverage these balanced perspectives in your work.

What success looks like:
During your first month, you will hands-on solve a technical problem to understand Vow’s technical challenges, such as by programming a liquid handling robot, or building electrical stimulation capability into a tissue maturation bioreactor. You’ll get to know a variety of engineers and cross-functional team members to understand their challenges and how your skills can be applied to solve Vow’s product & technical challenges.

Within three months you will have built deep reporting relationships with a number of engineers to support their success & growth at Vow, and be leading a key technical area of the business, such as the development of a new cell line for an upcoming product, or a fully automated protocol for feeding & maintaining R&D cell cultures.

By the end of your first year at Vow you will have been responsible for the hiring of multiple new world-class engineers to Vow, have a trusted & excited team of engineers who can thank you for their significant impact & professional growth, and have led multiple technical projects across biology, software, and hardware to invent delicious, sustainable cultured meat products for the world to enjoy.

Vow, more than just a job.

Who we are and why join:

• We are building a diverse, mission-driven dream team of “Vowzers.” Our mission is to make food products for everyone. To do that well we need a workforce that’s representative of the people we serve. We celebrate multiple approaches and points of view - so we’re building a culture to match. Be yourself and come as you are.
• Work on cutting-edge technology. We’re bringing together cutting-edge innovations in science, engineering, and food, to recreate the world’s most tantalising and unique culinary experiences. All without compromising on ethics or our planet along the way. Since our inception in 2019, we have held the title of being the first startup to cultivate meat from the cells of an undomesticated animal, and have served up our exotic meats ranging from kangaroo dumplings to alpaca sliders in tastings with world-renowned chefs.
• Work with and learn from the best. Our team includes some of the world’s leading scientists, innovators, operators, and creatives with decades of industry experience. Despite our experiences though, we all strive to build, break, learn, and repeat. We see the impossible as temporary and strive to learn and support our company and fellow Vowzers' growth as much as possible.
• We’re fully funded and ready to go. We are a growing Aussie biotech start-up backed by Square Peg Capital, Blackbird Ventures, Grok Ventures and Tenacious Ventures. Read more about why our investors are so excited about the future of Vow here.

Vow perks and benefits:

• Everyone is an owner. In addition to competitive base salaries, each and every ‘Vowzer’ owns equity in the company so we can all benefit from our hard work and future success.
• Generous paid parental leave. We offer 12 weeks for primary carers and 4 weeks for secondary carers.
• Generous relocation budget & support. Support for interstate or overseas individuals and their families (including pets!)
• Flexible working hours and location. We value work-life balance. While we’re mostly back in the office, you’re free to decide the best way for you to work.
• Unlimited Personal Leave. At Vow we recognise that sometimes you need time off to recuperate, look after your mental health, or simply deal with an emergency. We put unlimited personal leave in place to empower you to truly bring your best self to work every single day and you are always paid for days taken off as personal leave.
• Transparent culture. Active transparency to let you effectively contribute to every facet of the business.
• Heaps of tasty samples from our culinary centre. Our fantastic "food inventors" on the Vow team are always cooking up new product prototypes, and all Vowzers are given the opportunity to taste, give feedback, and learn from their culinary prowess
• Company wide professional development & coaching. A huge focus on career support and growth, with access to lots of learning and development opportunities through lunch and learn events, access to webinars and conferences, and networking with our investor and tech community.
• Company wide social events. Monthly birthday celebrations, "Bio Beers" happy hours, breakfast before our fortnightly companywide "All Hands”, annual end of year event and many more.
• An awesome converted warehouse office in Alexandria. Complete with a glass-walled lab, free snacks, a culinary centre and professional-grade coffee machine + premium coffee bean subscriptions available for all to use in the cafe, and a DIY workshop for all hands-on projects.
• Human and dog friendly office! An inclusive community and culture, in a welcoming office, complete with friendly “Vowzer” dogs!
• A variety of social clubs. We encourage all our Vowzers to build the culture with us and share what you love by creating social clubs across the business. From book clubs to hiking groups, we’re always looking for ways to learn and engage with our team.
• You don’t have to have every listed requirement and skill to be a great fit - you may even teach us something about what we should be looking for!

If you are passionate about this opportunity and think you have the skills to succeed, please apply! If not, but you know someone who might be interested, please share this post.