Captain of Operations

Operations & Development Manager, full-time

Start date: Februari 2025

Are you someone who can naturally energize and guide our teams in the right technical direction, while making sure that what we make is what our customers - tomato growers - need? We are looking for someone who knows how to navigate the greenhouse horticulture ecosystem, who can help us know what is most important to our customers and who can help SAIA find the right greenhouse industry partners to deploy our systems in their greenhouses. You have strong people skills, excel in cross-team collaboration, bring solid project management experience and above all: you have a hands-on mentality. You'll guide, inspire, and help our teams grow towards success so that we can bring our technology to the world.

Your challenge

SAIA is a fast growing startup (20 FTE) and a pioneer in greenhouse automation, recognized as the most disruptive automation approach for tomato growers worldwide (teaser video: click here). Our approach is based on a novel way of growing tomatoes, together with efficient logistics and automation with AI. In both our Ede demonstration greenhouse and our pilot locations in the Westland, our teams are working hard on building and testing prototypes of the SAIA systems in high-tech greenhouses. 

The total SAIA concept will be successful when all disciplines are fully aligned (cultivation systems, logistics & automation, software & AI, plus value to the grower). Next to this integration challenge, different parts of the system have different levels of product maturity. With your in-depth understanding of horticultural operations, you can guide our teams to achieve the right product level for each phase.  

Your responsibilities

As Operations & Development Manager, you'll be at the heart of our innovation journey, Here's what your responsibilities will be:

• Responsible for realizing the development of our first generation series of the SAIA automation and growing systems for our launching customers, together with greenhouse industry partners.
• Leadership to the interdisciplinary teams of hardware engineering, agronomy and software.
• Work closely with the management team in shaping and executing the technical and customer strategy for the next 2 years. Translate strategy into tangible objectives and practical short-term priorities for the individual teams. 

Your skills and experience

What will you bring to our team?

Experience in working in the greenhouse sector is a must, as our plants are central to our systems and we aim to provide a robust, reliable system that will truly answer growers' needs: healthy plants, predictable production and robust, reliable, and straightforward hardware.

We are looking for a supportive team player with excellent interpersonal skills who enjoys working with a multi-disciplinary team in a truly innovative environment where plants, hardware and software are brought together. 

Bring experience in working in a high-growth environment like a startup: you enjoy working in a vibrant environment, where you can make a difference and get the opportunity to grow as fast as we do. You are not afraid to work under pressure with tight deadlines and high ambition, bringing stability instead.  

Your profile:

• You are proficient in Dutch
• You have at least 5 years of experience working in the greenhouse industry.
• You have at least 5 years working experience in managing interdisciplinary technical teams.
• You have relevant experience in installing or deploying technical systems at growers sites. 
• You are a driven, energetic and enterprising person.
• You have excellent interpersonal skills.
• You are able to look beyond a single subsystem, you recognise future bottlenecks and seek knowledge and expertise where necessary.
• You are willing to travel frequently within the Netherlands.
• A driver’s license is required as our main customers are in the Westland.

Are you interested, please apply! Or if you have any questions, contact us!

What do we offer you?

What can you expect as Operations & Development Manager at SAIA?

• A competitive full-time salary, between € 6000,- and € 8000,- depending on your level of experience.
• Excellent employment conditions, including 25 days paid holiday.
• Career opportunities within our quick growing company.
• Be part of our world leading interdisciplinary team on greenhouse automation.
• An environment that facilitates and respects critical thinking, as well as open communication with all colleagues in the company.
• Work in our own high-tech greenhouse, very centrally located right next to Ede-Wageningen train station. 
• Highly skilled, motivated and ambitious colleagues who love robots, technology, plants and food!

About SAIA

At SAIA we do things differently. We aim to make high-tech food growing accessible to anyone, anywhere. We built a disruptive automated greenhouse, the food factory of the future. Our robot does not need to hunt for harvestable produce in the greenhouse jungle. Instead, we are the first to mobilise our plants so that we can bring them to our robot for easy, reliable deleafing and harvesting. We are now bringing our automated greenhouse to our first customers and are looking for new team members to help us do so.

You will work closely with an interdisciplinary team of experts in the field of AI, greenhouse cultivation, but also with external machine builders and engineering firms to create an integrated system. At SAIA Agrobotics, responsibility and ownership of your work are central. We are a relatively small team (20 people) working together on one big product, so working well together with people outside your specialisation is essential. We are looking for someone who looks beyond a single subsystem, someone who recognizes future bottlenecks and seeks knowledge and expertise outside SAIA where necessary. Critical thinking is highly valued and respected, as is open communication with all colleagues in the company.

You work together with both juniors and experienced engineers in different formations. Our dynamic and close-knit team consists of highly skilled, motivated and ambitious people who love robots, technology, plants and food. We aim to work efficiently with plenty of room for laughter, through the good times and the bad. Together we strive for a better world and healthy food for everyone.

Our state of the art Automated Greenhouse is located in Ede on the World Food Centre ground, where we work on our robots and machines. 

>> Want to know more? Visit www.saia.tech and contact us!