Sr. Director / Vice President, Platform Development

Tierra Biosciences, a venture capital backed life science company, has pioneered a novel high-throughput protein production platform that produces hundreds of custom proteins on-demand. Our platform can make proteins faster than other technologies and has the potential to onboard novel methods quickly. We use cell-free synthetic biology to bring the power and throughput of genomics technologies into protein production. Our diverse range of customers engage in the creation of pioneering products in therapeutics, chemistry, biotechnology, agriculture, and food. At Tierra Biosciences, we play a pivotal role in expediting our customers' scientific exploration, enabling them to swiftly transform ideas into market-ready, life-changing innovations.

We are looking for a Sr. Director or Vice President of Platform Development who will be responsible for leading the R&D function at Tierra Biosciences, including overseeing the overall mission, vision, strategy, growth initiatives, and culture for the R&D department. This pivotal role will drive research and development initiatives, fostering scientific innovation, and shaping the scientific direction of the company.

Job Duties:

• Develop and execute a comprehensive platform strategy aligned with the mission and objectives of the company, deploying new features and products.
• Provide leadership and oversight to the R&D team, including staffing, training, managing, and developing the team.
• Build and maintain strong working leadership with different functional leaders to meet the objectives in R&D.
• Encourage and drive innovation within the organization by staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies, fostering a culture of creativity and scientific excellence.
• Lead the development and commercialization of products and solutions that address unmet needs and market demands.
• Manage end-to-end product development cycles of the Tierra Protein Platform.
• Lead end-to-end product development cycles of support services that enable the platform.
• Serve as the primary interface for external resources for R&D.
• Drive systems development and integration through collaboration and engagement between scientific and engineering groups.
• Identify design requirements, navigate prototyping, and test the build to meet desired performance metrics.
• Assist in internal and commercial software development.
• Hold responsibility over design transfer activities of new and existing processes to the manufacturing team.
• Ensure that all research and development activities adhere to relevant regulatory guidelines and standards.
• Oversee the allocation of resources and budgets for scientific initiatives, optimizing cost-effectiveness and resource utilization.
• Identify and establish strategic partnerships, alliances, funding opportunities, and collaborations with industry leaders to enhance our competitive position.
• Safeguard and enhance the company's intellectual property portfolio through patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Requirements

Position Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant engineering field, advanced degree preferred.
• 15+ years of experience, with 10+ years of industry experience within the biotechnology or drug development space.
• Proven experience in a senior leadership role with management experience in building and retaining teams.
• Experience with automated workflows for products generation using biological tools, such as sequencing, cell imaging, DNA/protein synthesis or cell line development.
• Knowledge of and direct experience designing and optimizing robotic systems in biological workflows, specifically liquid handlers, incubators and sequencers.
• Experience proposing and evaluating system architectures to integrate complex biological workflows.
• Experience with data science and structuring data for machine learning.
• Experience taking a product into production as a primary contributor on a team or as a project lead.
• Excellent analysis and design skills, along with the ability to perform hands-on debugging of complex automation and software systems.
• Ability to organize priorities and manage multidisciplinary teams to deliver on projects, remaining accountable for the delivery of solutions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills required, along with demonstrated successful track record of managing outside technical resources.
• Experience managing external design and manufacturing vendors.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience building artificial intelligence and machine learning workflows.
• Extensive experience with software engineering.
• Experience deploying software in a cloud environment.
• Experience with deploying fully automated liquid handling systems.

Benefits

Tierra offers competitive salaries, a good equity program, and benefits, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, paid time off, and 401(k). Legal authorization to work in the US is required. We are not able to sponsor individuals for employment visas for this job. In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment verification form upon hire. This position is based in our San Leandro, CA location.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. 

The expected base salary range for this role is $200,000 - $250,000. Compensation will be based on a variety of factors, including experience, qualifications and internal equity.