Technical Operations

Farmless; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Farmless in Amsterdam is seeking a high-agency technical generalist who thrives on messy operational and physical problems, owning initiatives that don’t fit neatly into anyone else’s responsibilities. You’ll work with the CEO and finance & operations to solve facility, equipment, and process challenges.

You might renovate our facility, source equipment, fix issues, navigate permits, or write technical grants, and you’ll help bring new ingredients to market.

Qualifications

• More than three years of experience in a startup, or another technically demanding environment.
• Own the problem; proactively find solutions when something is broken.
• Technically curious; able to understand equipment, drawings, contractors or unfamiliar technical problems.
• Think in systems; automate workflows and build tools to help a small team.
• Low ego, high ambition; capable of big-picture thinking and handling mundane tasks.

Responsibilities

• Keep everything running. Own day-to-day ops including in managing supply chains, and dozens of small projects.
• Take on technical projects. Renovations, equipment sourcing, utilities, contractors, installations and improvements.
• Build for scale. Turn growing pains into internal systems that speed decision-making.
• Do stuff that doesn’t scale. Move fast by doing unglamorous things properly.

Job description

The role

We’re looking for a high-agency technical generalist who likes getting their hands dirty, enjoys messy operational and physical problems, and naturally owns problems that do not fit neatly into anyone else’s responsibilities.

You’ll work closely with the CEO and our finance & operations person. You might help renovate our facility, source a piece of equipment, fix something that broke in the factory, navigate a permit, or write a technical grant. You might also work on commercialising a new ingredient, negotiate with suppliers, set up a new supply chain, or take on one of the many unexpected problems that come with building a deep-tech company.

This is not your typical desk operations role. One day you might be working on a new utility installation, the next negotiating with a supplier, drafting a technical grant application, fixing a logistics bottleneck, or figuring out how to get a piece of equipment through a building that was never designed for it.

You don’t need to be the deepest technical expert in every room. You do need to understand technical problems quickly, ask good questions, bring the right people together, and keep pushing until things are done.

What you’ll do

• Keep everything running. Own day-to-day ops including in managing supply chains, and dozens of small projects.

• Take on technical projects. Help with renovations, equipment sourcing, utilities, contractors, installations and whatever else needs to be built, fixed or improved.

• Build for scale. Turn growing pains into internal systems that help us make decisions faster.

• Do stuff that doesn’t scale. Moving fast often comes from doing unglamorous things properly. You’ll jump into whatever matters most, whether or not it was in the original job description.

What we’re looking for

• Some scar tissue. You have more than three years of experience in a startup, or another technically demanding environment. You’ve seen plans break, priorities change, and good ideas fail. You thrive on variety and understand urgency.

• Own the problem. You don’t wait for a perfectly defined scope. If something is broken, you find a solution proactively.

• Technically curious. You don’t need to be an engineer, but you enjoy understanding how things work and aren’t intimidated by equipment, drawings, contractors or unfamiliar technical problems.

• Think in systems. Repetitive work bothers you. You naturally simplify processes, automate workflows, and build tools that help a small team do more.

• Low ego, high ambition. You’re happy thinking about the big picture and equally happy sorting out something mundane that simply needs to get done.

• This is a mission, not just a job. The possibility of producing dramatically more sustainable and ethical food genuinely excites you.

• Bonus Points!

  • You’ve managed a renovation, construction project or technical build-out before.

  • You know how to code, weld, use CAD, fix machinery, or have another useful technical skill.

  • Hard-won experience in startup or company-building (plus mistakes that taught you how to do it better).

  • You speak Dutch (sorry). It’s disproportionately useful for contractors, landlords and local authorities. English remains our default office language.

Rewards

• A flat, fast, and curious team working on one of the most exciting challenges in food

• A high-talent, low-ego culture where ideas and outcomes matter more than titles

• Serious responsibility and direct exposure to company-building

• Daily plant-based lunch, snacks, fruits, drinks

• Fun off sites & team drinks

• In house gym & regular team sport activities

What we’re building

We’re going beyond the limiting constraints of photosynthesis.

We use 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 land. Our fermentation platform relies on an easily storable and shippable renewable energy based feedstock. This allows us to break free from the limiting constraints of photosynthesis.

What we are building is the spiritual successor to the Haber-Bosch process. While Haber-Bosch led to cheap synthetic fertilizer which currently feeds half of humanity, we have found a way to produce amino acid complete proteins up to ±5000X more land efficient than animals. By rough approximation this could multiply the carrying capacity of the earth by an order of magnitude. The result of our ambition should be visible from space.

About us

We’re a small, highly technical and deeply curious team with deep food and fermentation expertise with backgrounds from The Vegetarian Butcher and Perfect Day to Lanzatech and many more.

We’re flat and interdisciplinary by design. We value autonomy, speed, and ambition. You’ll have the freedom to build, and the responsibility to do it well.

We’re based within the city ring of Amsterdam – for a reason. We want to attract the best people from around the world and believe that Amsterdam is a great place to settle – and bike to work. On top of that, the Netherlands is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The Dutch have a mindset to push the boundaries of food production and have the practical expertise to scale up our fermentation platform.

We believe hardware startups can thrive in Europe. If we can get approval here, we can do it anywhere (and we want Europe to accelerate).

We’ve raised +€10M from world-class investors including World Fund, Vorwerk Ventures, Revent, and Nucleus Capital, and European and national grants.