About us

Vow is a cultured meat company on a mission to feed billions and create food that’s good for your tastebuds, your health and your planet.

We’re bringing together cutting edge innovations in science, engineering, culinary and design to create new meats that meat lovers can choose selfishly because it’s nutritious and delicious, and we’re doing so in a sustainable way.

The role:

As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll build the software systems that orchestrate low-cost cell culture in our Alexandria facility. The work spans from operations software (data/analytics, planning, reporting) to factory software (controls, automation, coordination). Scope will shift with business priorities; your focus is to spot the highest-impact opportunities and ship useful solutions.

Our long-term vision is a factory run end-to-end by software: demand informs schedules, schedules drive automated execution, and each run makes the next one smarter. You’ll help build towards this by tackling problems like:

• Automating culturing decisions – optimising draw/fill quantities, timings, and control strategies from historical data.

• Building analytics that let our bioprocess experts push to higher cell densities.

• Moving from reactive QC to proactive, consumer-driven control of product attributes.

• Bridging supply and demand with shared planning tools and clearer primitives.

• Designing systems that trial small parameter changes in production and feed learnings back into future runs.

• Automating increasingly complex multi-machine operations so equipment can coordinate seamlessly with minimal operator input.

You’ll work shoulder-to-shoulder with operators, engineers, and scientists to turn Vow’s mission into reality. We value first-principles thinkers who embrace ambiguity and enjoy iterative development.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Strong software engineering foundations, demonstrated through a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science / Software | Electrical | Mechatronics Engineering or equivalent professional experience.

• Significant experience (typically 3–7+ years) delivering production systems; we are open to strong candidates earlier in their career if impact is demonstrated.

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Software engineering fundamentals (TypeScript & Python): write clear, reliable code; design sensible APIs; shape pragmatic, evolvable data models.

• Solid database foundations: Comfortable with relational/non-relational schemas and knowing when to introduce messaging, caching, or state machines.

• Strong product instincts & communication: shadow users, distill problems into usable software, iterate in code to outcomes.

• Cross-functional collaborator: Clear communicator who can drive projects end-to-end and collaborate with teammates across engineering domains.

• Zero-to-one builder: created/shipped something where little existed; shipped early and often, made tradeoffs, set conventions, left it maintainable.

Soft skills that will make someone successful:

• High ownership and resilience in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.

• First-principles problem solver who thrives where few precedents exist.

• Genuine passion for highly automated and AI-enabled manufacturing.

• User-centered approach - regularly seeks feedback and weighs end-user impact

• Pragmatic decision-making that balances quality, pace, and value.

• Ability to balance long term maintainability with rapid iteration

Bonus if you have:

• Built/contributed to complex, data-heavy apps: non-trivial data models, sophisticated business workflows, and stitching systems via APIs or ETL.

• Software that touches the real world: You’ve built software that tracked, visualised, or interacted with physical systems - e.g., lab instruments, robots, logistics/warehousing, medical/IoT devices, energy/industrial hardware, or manufacturing lines. You’re comfortable mapping telemetry to actions, dealing with imperfect data, and validating behaviour in the real world.

• Exposure to manufacturing/automation stacks (messaging, OPC-UA/Modbus) or time-series/streaming data.

• Open-source / side projects – visible contributions to OSS projects or personal projects demonstrating curiosity beyond your day job or entrepreneurial spirit

You will:

• Contribute across the stack in two key domains: primarily data/business focused software (inventory, quality, scheduling, costing, reporting/visualisation, supply/demand) and automation/controls/factory software as needed. Own features end-to-end.

• Work directly with operators and engineers to observe workflows, validate quickly, and turn findings into simpler, faster internal tools with clear, measurable outcomes.

• Advance our low-cost cell-culturing platform: contribute to new capabilities (planning/scheduling, quality-by-design, smart utility scheduling), improve reliability/performance, and help unlock flexibility via model/UI improvements.

• Extend our data model & pipelines – stream, store, and aggregate real-time process data; surface insights in dashboards, link to operational data for context

• Integrate wisely – plug in third-party MES/ERP or ML services where they add value, and craft clean and simple APIs for internal consumers.

• Prototype fast, validate rigorously – iterate with minimal red tape while upholding safety, uptime, and quality standards.

Location & Work Style

• Factory-first: Hardware lives in Alexandria, so most days you’ll be on site - observing, testing, and talking with operators.

• High-trust flexibility: Need heads-down time at home or to shift hours? Use your judgment, coordinate with the team, and go for it.

• In-person culture: We default to face-to-face because fast iteration across software, hardware, and biology works best that way. Remote is the exception, not the norm.

What success looks like:

Within 3 months, you will:

• Complete onboarding on our data model, core services, and operational workflows; shadow operators on the factory floor.

• Ship value early: Deliver high impact improvements to users whilst building context; begin independently scoping and owning new functionality.

• Share a short “fresh perspective” note: quick wins, debt to pay down, and 1–2 medium-term bets.

Within 6 months, you will:

• Lead multiple projects from problem → design → implementation → validation (e.g., scheduling sub-systems, supply-demand matching, data-model improvements) with measurable impact on decision quality or cycle time.

• Drive software contributions to larger team-wide initiatives (e.g., scheduling or supply/demand upgrades, quality-by-design checks), coordinating closely with operators and engineers.

• Take ownership of critical subsystems in our stack - backlog, roadmap, observability - ensuring they remain reliable and evolvable.

• Develop a deep understanding of our architecture and begin proposing and driving data model or workflow improvements that improve reliability and usability.

Within 12 months, you will:

• Propose and prototype forward-looking improvements (e.g., closed-loop optimisation, simulation, or a high-leverage third-party integration) that materially shifts how we operate.

• Independently own iteration of our core data models - driving changes that improve reliability, traceability, and usability

• Deliver a cornerstone capability (e.g., planning/scheduling primitives, traceability/quality gates, smart utility optimisation, or tools that accelerate recipe prototyping in our pilot kitchen) that we rely on week-to-week.

• Mentor newer engineers on our patterns (APIs, data models, UI ergonomics), and raise the bar with cross-team deep-dives or design reviews

• De-risk the next phase of scale (more reactors, SKUs, or throughput) by proving a pattern or integration path.

Who we are and why join:

• We are building a diverse, mission-led dream team of “Vowzers.” Our mission is to make food products for everyone. To do that well we need a workforce that’s representative of the people we serve. We celebrate multiple approaches and points of view - so we’re building a culture to match. Be yourself and come as you are.

• Work on cutting-edge technology. We’re bringing together cutting-edge innovations in science, engineering, and food, to recreate the world’s most tantalising and unique culinary experiences. All without compromising on ethics or our planet along the way. Since our inception in 2019, we have held the title of being the first startup to cultivate meat from the cells of an undomesticated animal, been called The Spaceship of the cultured meat industry by Forbes and launched our first product under the brand Forged in some of the hottest restaurants in Singapore.

• Work with and learn from the best. Our team includes some of the world’s top scientists, innovators, operators, and creatives with decades of industry experience. Despite our experiences though, we all strive to build, break, learn, and repeat. We see the impossible as temporary and strive to learn and support our company and fellow Vowzers' growth as much as possible.

• We’re fully funded and ready to go. We are a growing Aussie biotech start-up backed by Blackbird Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Grok Ventures, Tenacious Ventures, P7 Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and PeakBridge VC.

Vow perks and benefits:

• Everyone is an owner. In addition to competitive base salaries, each and every ‘Vowzer’ owns equity in the company so we can all benefit from our hard work and future success.

• Generous paid parental leave. We offer 8 weeks of paid caregiver leave and an additional 8 weeks paid leave for the birth giver.

• Generous relocation budget & support. Support for interstate or overseas team members and their families.

• Unlimited personal leave. At Vow we recognise that sometimes sh*t happens. We don’t want you to stress about work when you need to deal with an emergency or are struggling with something truly difficult. We offer unlimited personal leave to empower you to truly bring your best self to work every single day.

• Heaps of tasty samples from our culinary centre. Our fantastic "food inventors" on the Vow team are always cooking up new product prototypes, and all Vowzers are given the opportunity to taste, give feedback, and learn from their culinary prowess.

• An awesome converted warehouse “campus” in Alexandria. Complete with a glass-walled lab, 2 factories, shower and towel service, bike rack, free snacks, a culinary centre and plenty of collaboration and chill zones.

• Human and dog friendly office! An inclusive community and culture, in a welcoming office, complete with friendly “Vowzer” dogs!

• A variety of social clubs. We encourage all our Vowzers to build the culture with us and share what you love by creating social clubs across the business. From book clubs to hiking groups, we’re always looking for ways to learn and engage with our team.

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