Head of Operations (biomanufacturing)

Company Description

Scindo leverages AI-powered enzyme discovery and design to develop advanced biocatalysts that power the future of sustainable manufacturing. By transforming industrial chemistry with highly selective enzymes, Scindo unlocks novel synthesis routes that reduce energy use, waste generation, and dependence on fossil feedstocks. The company focuses on creating direct pathways from natural, renewable, or upcycled feedstocks to bioactive ingredients used in everyday products. These ingredients are applied across sectors such as cosmetics, personal care, nutrients, and foods, offering industry partners more sustainable and efficient production options. Scindo’s mission-driven environment provides opportunities to contribute to cutting-edge biotechnology with real-world impact.

As we scale towards manufacturing, we're looking for an operations lead to take charge of translation, scale-up and manufacturing, both for our enzymes and for the biocatalysis they drive. The role is about taking processes out of the lab and into production, largely through external manufacturers whose relationships you will help shape from an early stage. That means owning tech transfer and scale-up, selecting and managing the right partners, holding programme timelines, and building the quality and consistency that the final product depends on. This is a hands-on, broad role in a small team. You will move between problems as they arise rather than run a fixed remit, and you'll be as comfortable in the detail of a process as you are managing a partner, a timeline, or a scientific handoff.

Key tasks

• Owning the path from lab-scale to manufacturing across the full chain: enzyme production, biocatalytic manufacture of bioactives, and DSP
• Tech transfer and scale-up - turning internal know-how into processes a partner can execute reliably
• Selecting, onboarding and managing CMO/CDMO partners, and shaping those relationships while they're still early
• Quality: building the QC and process controls that supplied products require
• Programme timelines - planning, communication, and ensuring that projects stay on schedule
• Process improvement across yield, cost of goods and reproducibility as each step scales
• Working closely with the scientific team, translating between the bench and the manufacturing facility

What we're looking for

• A strong technical and project management background, with direct experience running translational work and scale-up, ideally of a bio or chemical process
• A track record managing external manufacturers - you understand how these relationships succeed and fail
• Deep technical understanding across process development and manufacturing, with hands-on QC experience
• Comfort owning timelines and liaising between scientific, manufacturing and commercial stakeholders
• Interest in working for an early-stage company: at ease with shifting priorities, new problems and a broad remit
• Helpful, not essential
• Experience across fermentation/enzyme production and downstream synthesis or formulation
• Process economics and cost-of-goods modelling
• Familiarity with the quality frameworks relevant to supplied products

If you're a creative problem solver who wants to be part of an exciting, pivotal stage in our journey, we'd like to hear from you.