Technical Dairy Field Operator

Spade; United States; On-site; USD 55,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Spade is seeking a Technical Dairy Field Operator to deploy Nexa systems on dairy farms, troubleshoot hardware and software, and collect field data to inform product improvements.

This hands-on role requires comfort working around cattle, driving between farms, and building strong relationships with farmers and dairy staff. Opportunities exist to grow into more senior operations and management roles as you gain experience.

Qualifications

• Experience on dairy farms, livestock ops, or large animals.
• Hands-on and mechanically inclined—able to build, install, fix, and troubleshoot physical systems.
• Willingness to travel between farms and work on-site in field deployments.
• Comfort with startup pace, ambiguity, and fast iteration.
• Ability to learn unfamiliar hardware, software, electronics, and networking.

Responsibilities

• Deploy Nexa systems on dairy farms, including cow tagging, microchipping, and setting up field infrastructure.
• Work hands-on with cattle and dairy personnel during deployments and testing.
• Gather farmer feedback and translate field observations into input for engineering.
• Onboard farmers and serve as a hands-on point of contact for troubleshooting.
• Assemble, configure, diagnose, and repair gateways, receivers, cameras, and field equipment.
• Troubleshoot connectivity, power, software configuration, networking, and device issues in the field.
• Lead special deployments and data collection efforts, including multi-camera/multi-device systems.
• Collaborate with engineers to improve products and contribute to prototypes and test setups.

Skills

Hands-on troubleshooting

Mechanical aptitude

Technical curiosity

Interpersonal skills

Farm environment resilience

Self-motivation

Tools

Gateways

Receivers

Cameras

Electronics debugging

Multimeter

Job description

We're building smart monitoring devices for cows - small, low-power embedded devices that monitor animal health and behavior on real farms. Our mission is to use technology to empower farmers and the food system that they drive.

About the role

We're hiring a Technical Dairy Field Operator to be boots on the ground across commercial and research dairy farms. This is a highly hands-on, generalist role spanning field deployments, farm support, animal handling, hardware and software troubleshooting, assembly, and data collection.

We're looking for someone technically inclined, comfortable getting their hands dirty, and excited to learn quickly and take ownership of whatever needs to get done. Over time, there will be opportunities to grow into more senior operations and management roles.

What you'll do

• Deploy Nexa systems on dairy farms, including supporting cow tagging and microchipping, installing gateways and receivers, and setting up field infrastructure


• Work hands-on with cattle and alongside dairy personnel during deployments and field testing


• Build strong relationships with farmers, gather product feedback, and translate field observations into actionable input for the engineering team


• Onboard farmers onto the Nexa system and serve as a hands-on point of contact for troubleshooting and support


• Assemble, configure, diagnose, and repair hardware such as gateways, receivers, cameras, smart eartags, and other field equipment


• Troubleshoot connectivity, power, software configuration, networking, and device issues in the field


• Spearhead special deployments and data collection efforts, such as building and maintaining multi-camera and multi-device systems


• Work directly with engineers to improve products, including contributing to mechanical prototypes, electronics debugging, software tooling, test setups, and other technical projects as your skills develop, fusing farm and animal-side learnings into development


• Document deployments, issues, farmer feedback, and field observations, and translate to real operational improvements


• Take on whatever field or hardware/software deployment problems need solving - the work may look different from one day to the next

You should have

• Experience working on or around dairy farms, livestock operations, or large animals, with strong comfort around cattle


• Hands-on and mechanically inclined - comfortable building, installing, fixing, and troubleshooting physical things


• Strong technical curiosity and the willingness to learn unfamiliar hardware, software, electronics, and networking systems


• Comfort using modern tools, including AI, to learn new technical skills and solve problems independently


• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate naturally with farmers, dairy staff, and engineers


• Willingness to work in real farm conditions, including dirt, manure, heat, cold, early mornings, and physically demanding environments


• Ability and willingness to spend significant time driving between farms and working on-site


• Comfort working independently without a tightly defined playbook


• Comfort with ambiguity, fast iteration, and startup pace

Nice to have

• Previous experience on a commercial dairy farm handling, tagging, or treating cattle


• Experience building, installing, or modifying networking, mechanical, or electronic systems


• Basic electronics skills, including using a multimeter, soldering, wiring, or debugging simple circuits


• Basic programming, scripting, CAD, and mechanical prototyping experience


• Familiarity with Wi-Fi, cellular, Ethernet, Linux, Raspberry Pi, or similar


• Spanish fluency


• Hands-on personal projects involving hardware, or other evidence that you like figuring out how things work

More information on Nexa: https://nexa.farm/

More information on Spade: http://spade.ag/