Histology Manager

Breakout Ventures; South San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) plan

Stock options

Paid holidays

Hybrid work environment

Job summary

Noetik, based in South San Francisco, seeks an experienced Histology Manager to lead histology operations and a growing team, ensuring high-quality tissue processing for FFPE, H&E, and downstream assays.

You will mentor the histology staff, build scalable workflows, and adopt automation to support increasing sample volumes while maintaining rigorous standards and collaboration across biosample, pathology, and platform teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in biological sciences, histotechnology, or related field.
• Extensive hands-on experience in histology, including FFPE tissue preparation and sectioning.
• Demonstrated expertise sectioning a broad range of human tissue types, including challenging specimens.
• Experience managing a histology team supporting high throughput tissue workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day histology operations, including FFPE reembedding, sectioning, H&E staining, and related tissue processing workflows.
• Serve as technical resource for difficult or complex histology issues.
• Establish and maintain standards for each step of the histology workflow, troubleshoot all aspects of the histology workflow.
• Ensure consistent production of high quality tissue sections for downstream assays including H&E, immunostaining, and spatial transcriptomics.
• Partner with downstream assay teams to understand requirements and ensure appropriate tissue preparation.

Skills

Histology

Team leadership

Histotechnology

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor’s degree in biological sciences

Histotechnology degree

Tools

LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System)

Histology equipment

Job description

WHY NOETIK

NOETIK is a frontier therapeutics company harnessing AI to deeply understand human biology and redefine clinical outcomes in oncology. Leveraging the largest proprietary multimodal oncology dataset of its kind, uniquely integrating deep spatial profiling with routine clinical assays, NOETIK’s foundation AI models precisely match therapeutic targets to patient subpopulations and accurately predict clinical efficacy. This AI-first approach elevates therapeutic development from probabilistic guesswork to precision science.

THE OPPORTUNITY

We are seeking an experienced Histology Manager to lead our histology operations and team. This role will be responsible for ensuring consistent, high-quality, and timely preparation of tissue samples supporting an evolving range of research and data generation workflows.

This role combines deep technical expertise in histology with strong operational and people leadership. This role will oversee day-to-day histology operations, develop and mentor the histology team, establish and maintain high quality standards, and continuously improve laboratory workflows with an eye for automation as our sample volumes and technical capabilities scale.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Histology Manager will work closely with colleagues across Biosample Operations, Pathology, Platform Innovation, Engineering, and other functions. The ideal candidate is an experienced histotechnologist who excels at building high performing teams, solving difficult tissue processing and sectioning problems, and developing robust laboratory operations in a fast-paced and dynamic environment. Success in this role will require a determination to push the boundaries of histology operations to creatively scale workflows.

Responsibilities include:

Histology operations and technical leadership

• Lead day-to-day histology operations, including FFPE reembedding, sectioning, H&E staining, and related tissue processing workflows
• Serve as technical resource for difficult or complex histology issues
• Establish and maintain standards for each step of the histology workflow, troubleshoot all aspects of the histology workflow, lead root cause investigations where appropriate
• Ensure consistent production of high quality tissue sections for downstream assays including H&E, immunostaining, and spatial transcriptomics
• Partner with downstream assay teams to understand requirements and ensure appropriate tissue preparation
• Communicate capacity constraints, technical risks, and sample quality issues to stakeholders
• Evaluate and implement new histology equipment, consumables, technologies, workflows, and cutting edge automation to enable histology operations at scale

Team leadership

• Manage, mentor, and develop the histology team
• Establish clear expectations for technical performance, quality, productivity, and laboratory procedures
• Provide regular feedback, coaching, and career development for team members
• Develop onboarding and training programs for new histology team members
• Foster a collaborative, quality-focused, and continuous-improvement culture

REQUIRED EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree in biological sciences, histotechnology, or related field
• Extensive hands-on experience in histology, including FFPE tissue preparation and sectioning
• Demonstrated expertise sectioning a broad range of human tissue types, including challenging specimens
• Strong understanding of common histology workflows and artifacts, including tissue microarrays, with ability to troubleshoot complex issues
• Experience managing a histology team supporting high throughput tissue workflows
• Experience managing laboratory workflows, priorities, and capacity, including working with laboratory information management systems
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, particularly when working with high value or limited tissue samples

QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS

• Strong track record in exceeding expectations, with a drive for efficiency
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a fast paced, highly collaborative and dynamic environment
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Team player, eager to unblock bottlenecked steps and lead continuous process improvement

Life@Noetik

Great science is a team sport. We are focused on creating a culture where brilliant people from different backgrounds can solve hard problems together. At Noetik, culture isn't just about perks; it’s about building a vibrant, collaborative community where everyone has the tools and the autonomy to thrive.

How We Work

Location & Collaboration: our primary lab and office space is located in South San Francisco. We operate as a hybrid organization, utilizing Slack, Zoom, and a modern tech stack to stay seamlessly connected regardless of time zone.

Intentional Connection: we believe that high-impact work requires intentional time together. We keep the team aligned through monthly All-Hands meetings and Quarterly Co-working Weeks at our South San Francisco office. Once a year, we gather for an Annual Reset - a week-long offsite dedicated to high-level strategy, collaboration and team bonding. Past locations have included Austin, TX, Park City, UT, and Boulder, CO.

Onsite Community: For team members working onsite, we foster a collaborative environment and refuel with daily catered lunches from great local restaurants and Boba Thursday - a small but meaningful tradition where we step away from our desks to connect over a break.

How We Support You

Health & Wellbeing: we provide generous health, dental, and vision insurance, with premiums fully covered for both employees and their dependents (depending on your plan choice). Our coverage is designed to be comprehensive and accessible, featuring modern care platforms like OneMedical, Midi Health, Spring Health, and XP Health. To further support your needs, we offer HSA and FSA accounts, dependent care savings, an EAP, resources for mental health (Rula), and health care navigation and advocacy (Rightway).

Time Off & Synchronized Breaks: we offer Flexible PTO to manage your personal time, alongside nine paid holidays. We also offer synchronized breaks so that the team can fully unplug simultaneously - two full-week company breaks (the first week of July and the last week of December), plus the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Compensation & Financial Benefits: our financial package includes a competitive base salary, stock options, and a 401(k) plan with an employer match. We provide a safety net through fully-covered disability, life and AD&D insurance, as well as generous parental leave. We also offer a suite of financial and lifestyle tools, including SoFi, Multiply Mortgage, and optional programs for pet insurance, legal services, and identity theft protection.

We believe that the highest performing teams include people from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences who respectfully challenge each other. We are committed to an open, diverse and inclusive culture for all employees. Noetik is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, citizenship status, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, creed, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, veteran status and any other characteristics protected under applicable federal, state and local laws.