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Director of Manufacturing Operations

Aquabyte

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Operations

Boston, MA, USA

Posted on Sunday, April 24, 2022

Aquabyte is seeking a Director of Manufacturing Operations to drive the manufacturing, testing, and delivery of quality hardware products enabling cutting-edge analytics and automation of fish farms around the world.

We're happy to announce the completion of our Series B round of funding to continue our mission of transforming aquaculture to meet the world’s demand for sustainable protein!

Watch a short documentary on Aquabyte with Amazon's CTO at a Norwegian fish farm here! https://youtu.be/YZ_qJ5JFD3I

Our mission

Aquabyte is on a mission to revolutionize the sustainability and efficiency of aquaculture. It is an audacious, and incredibly rewarding mission. By making fish farming cheaper and more viable than livestock production, we aim to mitigate one of the biggest causes of climate change and help prepare our planet for impending population growth. Aquaculture is the single fastest growing food-production sector in the world, and now is the time to define how technology is used to harvest the sea for generations to come.

We are a diverse, mission-driven team that is eager to work alongside kindred spirits. If this vision makes you smile, gives you goosebumps, or otherwise inspires you please get in touch.

Our product

We are currently focused on helping Norwegian salmon farmers better understand their fish populations and make environmentally-sound decisions. Through custom underwater cameras, computer vision, and machine learning we are able to quantify fish weights, detect sea lice infestations, and generate optimal feeding plans in real time. Our product operates at three levels: on-site hardware for image capture, cloud pipelines for data processing, and a user-facing web application. As a result, there are hundreds of moving pieces and no shortage of fascinating challenges across all levels of the stack.

Above all, Aquabyte is a customer-driven company. Our product development is dictated by the needs of fish farmers and we prioritize customer delight in everything we do. We are committed to build a global, collaborative team that creates value far beyond Silicon Valley.

The role

Aquabyte is producing industry-leading hardware products to enable analytics from optical and real-world sensors deployed underwater in industrial fish farms and additionally enabling robotic automation of farm tasks. This hardware is deployed in some of the most harsh operating conditions on earth for electronics and sensors and is difficult to access once deployed.

Your role is to produce quality hardware on-schedule and within budget to meet customer needs. You will involve and manage Production Engineers as well as contract mechanical designers, iterate on existing designs, and develop new concepts for manufacturing automation and enterprise product lines. You will challenge mechanical and electrical engineering decisions to enhance the quality, manufacturability, and cost of hardware. You will work with the product team to ensure hardware meets customer expectations.

This role is particularly ambitious within an already ambitious company; we hope you enjoy challenges.

Duties

Lead and manage all aspects of Aquabyte's manufacturing, quality, testing, and logistics functions.
Create and report key KPIs to the leadership and executive teams.
Develop and execute operational strategies that will improve quality, on-time delivery and reduce waste.
Work closely with hardware engineering to roll out new hardware and automation processes.
Work closely with supply chain and procurement to implement operational process improvements to increase efficiency in material ordering, inventory management, and data management.
Ensure a smooth transition from R&D to manufacturing.
Manage contract manufacturers from an engineering perspective to support new manufacturing processes.
Oversee improvements to the Quality and Testing functions, specifically implement process improvements to prevent online defects, reduce field failures and increase velocity of production.
Work with procurement to develop global manufacturing footprint strategy and scale operations across multiple sites to support our vision of local, on-demand manufacturing.
Recruit, develop and train your team. Initiate methods to encourage effective leadership, decision-making, collaboration and innovation.

Qualifications

8+ years hands-on manufacturing operations experience
2+ years managing production teams
Proven success scaling operations and supply chain in a start-up environment
Experience in supply chain and inventory management, from planning through purchasing
A strong technical foundation, with knowledge of engineering design, manufacturing methods, process improvement programs, lean manufacturing, security and quality procedures
Experienced in manufacturing analytics, quality assurance and root cause analysis
You have a builder’s mindset and can shift easily between strategic thinking to rolling up your sleeves and getting things done
Outstanding managerial and employee development skills
Ability to manage multiple cross-functional projects and priorities with competing deadlines and re-prioritize as necessary to align with current business needs.
Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work with others in a positive, collaborative manner. Ability to work well on cross-functional basis internally and with business partners

Bonus Qualifications

Mechanical engineering degree
Experience developing underwater or marine-environment products
Experience developing agricultural/food-supply-chain products
Experience developing robotics / optical products

Benefits

Competitive salaries and generous equity
Unlimited vacation policy
Flexible working hours + hybrid work policy
Medical, vision, & dental insurance
Retirement plan
Potential travel to Norway
Evolve in a fast-paced environment
Be able to shape a business in its early days
Get ideas, feedback, and suggestions from other best-in-their-field colleagues
Mentorship opportunities, we'll be dedicated to investing in you and supporting you as you grow

Aquabyte is a private company headquartered in San Francisco, and is supported by NEA, Costanoa Ventures, and many other respected investors.

At Aquabyte, we admire interesting people with a unique background. We strongly encourage you to apply even if you don’t satisfy all the requirements, and we will get back to you as soon as possible!