Director, Technology Development

Biosphere • Oakland, CA

3d

About The Position

Biosphere is seeking a management-level Director, Technology Development to execute a technically ambitious R&D roadmap, develop reactor technologies for integration into its demonstration plant, and lead a small, multidisciplinary R&D team. The role owns day-to-day R&D priorities, experimental decisions, and delivery within agreed budgets, with increasing ownership of high-risk, high-reward technical work as it progresses. The director will be hands-on while setting priorities, coaching team members, reviewing data, and hiring as needed. The position collaborates closely with the Principal Engineer and capital projects team to develop and validate assigned technologies and agree on requirements, acceptance criteria, and handoff into plant design and commissioning.

The director will take reactor technologies and subsystems from proof of concept to validated designs, including pilot-scale reactors and next-generation prototypes for government-funded programs. The role also delivers validated designs and specifications for the 20,000-liter line and supports its installation and commissioning. It leads assigned funded research projects through delivery and technical reporting, contributes to proposals when aligned with priorities and capacity, and makes process and techno-economic decisions.

The role establishes standards for experimental design and statistics, including defining what tests must demonstrate, how many runs are needed, and how results should be analyzed—including rare events such as contamination. It also builds tools to track experiments and characterize failures, and independently manages the R&D portfolio by assigning owners, budgets, milestones, and decision points; ranking work by value, remaining cost, and delivery risk; stopping discretionary work that no longer justifies its cost; and escalating changes to contractual commitments.

Within the first 60 days, the director is expected to agree with the Biosphere management team on an R&D portfolio delivery plan covering priorities, owners, milestone dates, acceptance criteria, and dependencies with the plant team. Success includes getting roadmap technologies to validated designs with test data and acceptance criteria incorporated into the demonstration plant design, delivering funded research milestones and budgets without delaying priority commitments, and bringing leadership evidence-backed recommendations on strategy, major spending, new commitments, and future work.

Requirements

• Experience leading a complex, multidisciplinary technical team developing and scaling new process technology in biotech, chemicals, materials, energy, water, or another process industry.
• Process engineering experience, including mass and energy balances, unit operations, heat and mass transfer, and scale-up.
• Experience with techno-economic analysis.
• Fluency in experimental design and applied statistics, including designed experiments, hypothesis testing, sample size and power, and reliability or rare-event analysis.
• Ability to write and present clearly to engineers and funders.

Nice To Haves

• Bioreactor or fermentation equipment development, pilot-scale reactor design, and scale-up.
• Cleaning and sterilization experience, including CIP, SIP, or sterility validation, and hygienic design knowledge such as ASME BPE or EHEDG.
• Experience with first-of-a-kind process plants or capital projects.
• Experience with government-funded R&D programs.
• Instrumentation and controls experience.
• An advanced degree is helpful but not required.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the R&D team, including setting priorities, coaching, reviewing data, and hiring as the work requires.
• Execute roadmap milestones, developing new reactor technologies and subsystems from proof of concept to validated designs, including pilot-scale reactors and next-generation prototypes for government-funded programs.
• Deliver validated designs and specifications for the 20,000-liter line, and support installation and commissioning.
• Lead assigned funded research projects through delivery and technical reporting in collaboration with project managers.
• Contribute to proposals when the work aligns with Biosphere’s priorities and capacity.
• Make process and techno-economic decisions.
• Set standards for experimental design and statistics, determining test objectives, run counts, and analysis methods, including for rare events such as contamination.
• Build tools to track experiments and characterize failures.
• Manage the R&D portfolio by assigning program owners, budgets, milestones, and next decisions; ranking work by value, remaining cost, and delivery risk; stopping discretionary work when warranted; and escalating changes to contractual commitments.
• Agree with Biosphere management on an R&D portfolio delivery plan within the first 60 days, including priorities, owners, milestones, acceptance criteria, and plant-team dependencies.
• Collaborate with the Principal Engineer and capital projects team to agree on technology requirements, acceptance criteria, and handoff into plant design and commissioning.
• Bring evidence-backed recommendations to leadership on strategy, major spending, new commitments, and subsequent R&D priorities.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation through a mix of salary and equity.
• Unlimited paid vacation and sick/leave days, plus public holidays.
• Comprehensive health insurance for employees and their dependents, including dental and vision.
• Paid family leave.
• Membership at Pacific Pipe Climbing gym next door.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed