Fermentation Engineer

Fermentation Engineer The role

We’re looking for a highly ambitious Fermentation Engineer to push every part of our fermentation process forward.

We’re a small, high-talent-density team operating at the frontier of protein fermentation. Every hire changes the trajectory of the company. We look for people who take ownership, move fast, think unconventional and materially improve performance.

We’re preparing to build our first commercial demo. The system you shape at our pilot today will define how we perform at commercial scale tomorrow.

We work full-time on site because complex systems are built best together. Ideas move faster when you can walk to the fermentor, sketch on a whiteboard, and challenge each other in real time. This is a team sport, built shoulder to shoulder.

Your work lives mainly at pilot scale and beyond. This is not theoretical optimisation. You will run high-performance continuous fermentations, analyse real-time data, identify constraints, challenge assumptions, and redesign what doesn’t make sense. We build from first principles. If “industry standard” slows us down, we rewrite it.

There is real autonomy, and you’re expected to use it. The person closest to the problem decides. If something is broken, you fix it.

Speed matters. We run experiments, learn, and iterate fast. Mistakes are fine. Repeating or hiding them is not.

You will get your hands dirty: reactor modifications, control redesign, sensor integration, or software hacks. You’re comfortable in noisy, hot, and operationally messy environments.

Freedom comes with responsibility. You own your decisions, technically, ethically, and financially. You treat company resources like your own and only buy for speed or real quality.

We operate on trust and intellectual honesty. You challenge ideas directly and accept being challenged. You care more about outcomes than credit.

You learn fast, adapt quickly, and stay humble… even when you’re very good. Your growth curve here is limited only by how much you can handle.

This is not just a job. We’re building infrastructure that could fundamentally change how protein is produced. If that excites you, apply.

We want the best people in the world. And we’re willing to relocate exceptional talent to Amsterdam from wherever you are.

• Operate, and optimise continuous sterile fermentations to maximise productivity, yield, and titer using real-time sensor data and rigorous offline analysis.
• Translate protocols from bench to pilot to production (and back) while anticipating and resolving scale-dependent failure modes.
• Improve hardware, software, controls, and automation.
• Contribute to the design and commissioning of next scale commercial systems.
• Propose and execute experiments that materially shift performance.

• 3+ years relevant industry experience and a degree in biological sciences or engineering.
• Extensive experience with sterile operations, from experimental design to operation to data analysis.
• Proven track record of past success.
• Practical engineering mindset: you fix, build, and modify.
• Excellent English proficiency.
• Physically able to work in an industrial pilot environment (including lifting up to 25 kg).

• Pilot or production-scale (continuous) fermentation experience.
• Advanced soft- or hardware skills.
• Bioreactor or scale-up modelling.
• Strong mechanical, electrical, or systems engineering capability.

• Work at the frontier of food and fermentation on one of the most technically ambitious challenges in the field.
• A competitive salary including employee stock options
• A small, high-talent, low-ego team where ideas matter more than titles.
• Relocation support to Amsterdam, one of Europe’s most liveable & bikeable cities!
• Daily plant-based lunches and an in-house gym
• Off-site team building activities (plus drinks!)

We’re going beyond the limiting constraints of photosynthesis.

Humanity has used natural fermentation to turn simple ingredients into complex proteins. It’s what we've been doing for millennia with wine, beer, bread and yoghurt.

Yet most fermentations rely on sugars - which are derived from crops grown on agricultural…