IT Lead

About us

Vow is a food company - a very different one. We’re creating real meat products from animal cells instead of the animal itself.

We’re bringing together cutting-edge innovations in science, engineering, culinary, and design to make sustainable food that’s both irresistible and available to billions of people worldwide.

The role:

We're looking for an experienced IT Lead to join our rapidly growing startup. You’ll lead projects by leveraging your technical experience, ability to align to work with stakeholders across the organisation and your user-first philosophy. You’ll work with others to drive cybersecurity initiatives, infrastructure improvements, networking upgrades, process automation, vendor relations, and end-user support, all with the goal of producing delicious, scalable cultured meat products as well as the infrastructure that makes it all possible.

You’ll develop our modern IT stack built on technologies such as MDM, networking and facilities access, SaaS applications, on-premise servers, and cloud computing, and get to work rapidly without a bunch of legacy systems overhead to contend with.

You’ll work with a world-class, multidisciplinary team to make delicious food, stop climate change, preserve our world’s biodiversity, and end the unnecessary suffering of animals.

You have:

• 4+ years relevant professional experience designing, building, shipping and maintaining IT systems.
• Degree in IT or related disciplines or equivalent additional professional experience to demonstrate excellence in your craft.
• Strong knowledge of core security and networking concepts to implement best practices across organisation, multiple sites, hybrid on-prem and cloud environments.
• Experience developing and communicating technical strategy with cross-functional stakeholders that articulates the problem & solution approach, with a clear focus on pragmatically delivering outcomes to our mission as quickly as possible.
• Experience implementing and managing some or all of the following: MDM, SSO, conditional access, asset management, video conferencing, SaaS applications, endpoint protection, vendor management, identity management, and cloud services (AWS preferred).
• Experience in a scripting language (e.g. Python, Bash).
• Experience with Linux or macOS administration.
• Strong alignment with our company values, listed here.

You will

• Architect and implement technology systems across the organisation to support Vow’s rapidly growing technology needs, all which enable us to reinvent food and dramatically improve the sustainability of our food systems for the 21st Century.
• Implement IT and security best practices, including endpoint, cloud and physical security across diverse, and unique environments such as sterile labs, manufacturing areas, and office spaces.
• Respond to and troubleshoot system issues and end-user requests in a multi-OS (Windows/Mac/Linux) and hybrid on-prem and cloud environment.
• Manage and mentor existing engineers on your team.
• Manage our Google Workspace tenant and a growing suite of SaaS applications (Zoom, Slack, Notion etc.)
• Design, implement and run effective IT and security processes with relevant service providers and automation where it makes sense.
• Deploy and manage our Vow hardware across multiple locations.  This includes our server and networking racks, with virtualised environments that support our lab automation systems.

What success looks like

In the first month, you’ll get to know your team and manager, work alongside scientists and engineers to understand their IT challenges, learn the core science of cultured meat, and delve into our IT infrastructure to immediately ship impactful improvements. You could implement a critical security policy to secure Vow’s core IP, or build a user-friendly system for lab authentication.

Over the next 3 months, you could find yourself establishing more effective systems for managing a growing fleet of endpoint devices (employee laptops, lab computers, IoT devices etc), establish vital relationships with service vendors, and manage and mentor our IT Engineer to ensure every end-user request is solved in a pragmatic and efficient manner.

By the end of your first year, you will have been responsible for streamlining the IT onboarding of dozens of new Vowzers, implemented multiple best practice IT policies across the company with high compliance, and have led multiple organisation-wide projects involving many stakeholders to completion

Vow, more than just a job.

Who we are and why join:

• We are building a diverse, mission-driven 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, and have served up our exotic meats ranging from kangaroo dumplings to alpaca sliders in tastings with world-renowned chefs.
• Work with and learn from the best. Our team includes some of the world’s leading 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 for 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 (including pets!)
• Flexible working hours and location. We value work-life balance. While we’re mostly back in the office, you’re free to choose the best way for you to work.
• Unlimited personal leave. At Vow we recognise that sometimes you need time off to recuperate, look after your mental health, or simply deal with an emergency. We put unlimited personal leave in place to empower you to truly bring your best self to work every single day and you are always paid for days taken off as personal leave.
• 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, manufacturing line, free snacks, a culinary centre, and professional-grade coffee machine in our cafe, as well as a DIY workshop for all hands-on projects.
• 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.

You don’t have to have every listed requirement and skill to be a great fit - you may even teach us something about what we should be looking for! If you are passionate about this opportunity and think you have the skills to succeed, please apply! If not, but you know someone who might be interested, please share this post.