Director of EU Bioprocess Development & CDMO Management

About Oath: 

Oath is a leading microbial sciences company that utilizes natural soil biology to offer innovative solutions to some of the most critical challenges facing our planet - the climate crisis and the shift to sustainable agriculture. We imagine a world where these crises are not just alleviated, but reversed, replenishing Earth's microbiomes.

Our solution has moved beyond the lab and into real-world deployment, focused on improving farmer livelihoods with teams in Rwanda, Europe, the United States, and expanding. When you join Oath, you become part of a collaborative network that prioritizes high quality scientific work. You will be working alongside trained scientists, talented commercial teams, and a broad network of partners—an ecosystem designed to help you do your best work and grow your capabilities.

Position Summary

As the Head of Bioprocess Development & CDMO Coordination, you will be the technical project leader and project manager orchestrating the coordination across in-house process development and Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) partners. You will bridge the gap between R&D breakthroughs and industrial-scale manufacturing of live microbial products to improve soil and plant health. You will guide the technical evolution of our liquid fermentation, solid-state fermentation, and downstream processing platforms, transforming raw microbial potential into high-performing, "production-ready" commercial manufacturing processes and representative product samples that address global environmental and food insecurity challenges. Your responsibilities will include lab-to-pilot process development, tech transfers, and handoff to the manufacturing team and CMOs. 

Key Responsibilities

• Project Management: Apply effective project management tools and approaches to ensure clear and transparent planning, tracking, coordination, scheduling, task assignments, and documentation of process development and product sample production activities. Collaborate with colleagues and CDMOs to ensure timely delivery of product samples for field trials, regulatory testing, and early-stage commercialization activities.
• Process Development Leadership: Oversee the experimental designs and data analyses for fermentation process development for liquid fermentation and solid-state fermentation of soil microbes, ensuring high-titer growth, sporulation (if applicable), and viability.
• Downstream & Formulation Innovation: Oversee the development of lab and pilot processes for complex downstream workflows—including formulation, drying, milling, and blending—to maximize viable recovery, achieve target shelf-life, and comply with required physical properties.
• CDMO Technical Oversight: Lead technical relationships, develop work plans, and coordinate scheduling for development activities and piloting with CDMOs, establishing detailed process specifications, success criteria, data requirements, and seamless tech transfer protocols.
• Stage-Gate Management: Establish and manage the minimum-viable-product (MVP) stage-gate process to transition products from "In Development" to "Production Ready," including Early Manufacturability Assessments (EMA).
• Stability & Quality Control: Help develop blending processes that are rigorously validated for homogeneity. Plan and coordinate monitoring of shelf life for both Technical Grade Active Ingredients (TGAI) and Finished Products (FP). In collaboration with the commercial team, help establish and oversee execution of methods for compatibility and customer-usability testing of products with other common crop inputs. 
• Application Technology Development: Coordinate technology development for various alternative soil and plant application formats, including On-Seed (OS) application technology, with in-house or outsourced partners.
• R&D Collaboration: As part of the R&D team, collaborate closely with upstream R&D teams responsible for microbial isolation, advanced genomics, AI/ML predictions of microbial functions, strain stock creation and QC, in vitro and in planta assays of microbial strain and consortia performance, and determinations of product Mechanisms of Action. Also, collaborate closely with the commercial, field sciences, manufacturing, and supply chain teams.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree (Ph.D. or MS or equivalent experience) in Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Agricultural Engineering, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in liquid fermentation process development (PD), downstream processing (DSP) development, and scale-up.
• Proven track record of effective technical project management and leadership, delivery of scalable technical innovations, and productive management of relationships with external process development and/or manufacturing partners.
• Experience with Bacillus-like sporulating strains, Streptomyces, and diverse soil-based microbial strains is a plus.
• Strong working knowledge of Google Suite, Microsoft365, project management software (e.g., Jira or Asana), LIMS (e.g., Benchling or R2DIO), work messaging apps (Slack or Teams), documentation tools (e.g., Confluence or OneNote), data visualization and statistical analysis tools (e.g., Spotfire or JMP or R), and AI tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini).
• Strong cross-functional communication, alignment-building, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to translate and distill technical data and data-driven recommendations for commercial, manufacturing, and operations teams.

Job Type: Full-time, non-exempt position.  At this time, Oath, Inc. is not able to provide visa sponsorship or work authorization support.

Location: The ideal candidate will work remotely from a European location; or work remotely from elsewhere following a daily European (CET) business hours schedule.

Compensation: 

The ranges below represent the anticipated low and high end of the base salary for candidates in our preferred hiring locations:

• United Kingdom £85,000 - £100,000 
• Switzerland CHF 135,000 - CHF 155,000

For candidates outside of these regions: We offer competitive, location-based compensation packages tailored to your local market. Final offers will be discussed during the interview process based on your specific location.

Benefits:

• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Stock options