Director of Strain Engineering
Level and Title: Dependent on experience of applicant.
Reports To: The Chief Scientific Officer
Company Size: ~23 employees
Industry: Sustainable Agricultural Biotechnology
About Switch
Based in San Carlos, CA, Switch Bioworks is redefining bioproduction through programmable microbes. Beginning with agriculture, we are developing nitrogen-fixing microbial consortia that live directly on crop roots. This replaces expensive, carbon-intensive synthetic fertilizers with a living alternative that reshapes the economics and sustainability of farming.
Our edge lies in our namesake “switches” - synthetic biology control systems that activate microbial production only when and where it’s needed. By combining microbial ecology with advanced genetic control systems, Switch is building a biological platform with the potential to transform agriculture and a wide range of industrial bioproduction applications.
Position Summary
As Director of Strain Engineering, you will define the strategy and lead the execution of Switch’s strain and consortium engineering platform. You will drive strain engineering to high-throughput and faster DBTL cycles, applying modular genetic circuit design, automation, and new construction and screening methods to non-model organisms that lack off-the-shelf genetic tools.
You will manage and develop a high-performing team of exceptional scientists, own an annual budget, own delivery across strain engineering workstreams supporting both an internal pipeline and external R&D partnerships, and serve as the technical lead for strain engineering in partner-facing discussions.
We are looking for a leader who has successfully developed and scaled a team. This role involves hands-on lab work; you will be at the bench regularly, leading by example, running and troubleshooting experiments alongside your team.
This position reports to the Chief Scientific Officer.
Key Responsibilities
● Platform: Architect and build out Switch's bacterial strain engineering platform, establishing a modular circuit design and construction platform that integrates a design-build-test-learn infrastructure, together with the registry, LIMS workflows, standardized SOPs, and data systems that connect them. Own the capability roadmap and the build-versus-buy decisions behind it.
● Chassis and Genetic Tools: Set chassis strategy for non-model organism bacteria, and direct the tool development required to support it: DNA delivery, editing and integration systems, inducible and constitutive expression parts, and counterselection markers, ensuring genetic tractability is never the constraint on where the pipeline can go.
● Pipeline Impact: Define the circuit and metabolic engineering strategy for improving bacterial strain performance against product-defining metrics, and be accountable for engineered strains advancing through growth chamber, greenhouse, and field evaluation.
● Partnerships: Partner with CBO and CSO to own technical strategy and delivery across strain engineering workstreams supporting external partnerships, meeting milestones on schedule and serving as the technical authority for your area in partner-facing reviews.
● Cross-functional Delivery: Partner with process development on manufacturability, formulation on delivery constraints, and plant science and field teams on phenotype-to-field translation. Shape the experimental designs that cross these boundaries rather than handing off strains.
● Intellectual Property: Partner with Senior Counsel and CSO to build and protect the IP underpinning the platform. Identify patentable inventions as they emerge, and design with freedom to operate and the regulatory pathway in view.
● Budget: Under guidance from the CFO and CSO, build and manage your team’s annual budget: headcount plan, capital equipment, consumables, external services and software.
● Team: Build the strain engineering organization to meet a growing pipeline, including structure, hiring, leveling, and the development of scientific leaders within the team.
● Technical Leadership: Set multi-year technical direction for strain engineering, direct experimental strategy at the bench, and contribute to company-wide R&D strategy as part of the senior technical team.
Characteristics of a Successful Candidate
● Proven people leader who has built, scaled, and restructured scientific teams, who thrives on developing young scientists into leaders, and who has successfully developed and managed budgets.
● Demonstrated track record of successfully engineering bacterial strains that reached commercial deployment.
● Expertise across high-throughput strain and metabolic engineering, including demonstrated experience using computational techniques to drive strategy.
● Current with state-of-the art genetic engineering tools and techniques, with hands on experience in: the design, synthesis, and assembly (in vivo and in vitro) of synthetic biology parts and circuits, modular assembly of functional modules and DNA libraries, targeted and combinatorial genome editing (classic and CRISPR-based), high-throughput strain physiological screening (colony picking through quantitative assays), lab automation, and high-throughput data processing.
● Experience in the theory and practice of evolutionary engineering across proteins, genes, metabolic pathways, and genomes, including library design, construction, screening, and the statistical analysis and predictive modelling from combinatorial data (ProSAR, etc).
● Deep understanding of the application of Xomics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), including methodology, experimental design, data analysis, and interpretation, with an emphasis on diverse applications of nextgen sequencing.
● Experience engineering diverse non-model bacteria, with demonstrated success in engineering strains when a standard tool kit does not exist..
● Works naturally across diverse company functions and can communicate technical depth clearly, effectively, and appropriately to internal and external stakeholders.
● Brings a strong blend of process orientation and innovation, able to install the rigor and systems a scaling team needs without dampening the creativity that drives discovery.
● Comfortable leading the team's experimental work hands-on in the lab while operating strategically across the organization with an owner mindset.
Preferred Qualifications
● Ph.D. (ideal) or M.S. (required) in Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Synthetic Biology, Metabolic Engineering, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering or a related discipline.
● 10+ years of industry experience in strain engineering or a closely related field, including 5+ years managing scientific teams.
● Experience in a startup environment is required. Additional experience at a large, established organization is ideal.
● Hands-on experience building or substantially scaling high-throughput strain engineering capability, including laboratory automation and the data infrastructure supporting design-build-test-learn cycles.
● Deep hands-on expertise with state-of-the-art bacterial molecular genetics, synthetic biology, DNA library design and construction techniques
● Hands on working knowledge of LIMS and ELN systems, including strain and part registries and inventory management; Benchling LIMS experience strongly preferred.
● Track record of technical contribution to R&D partnerships or collaborations with external organizations.
● Experience with plant-associated, soil, or environmentally released microbes and exposure to regulatory pathways for engineered microorganisms is a strong plus.
● Must be authorized to work full-time in the U.S. and able to work on-site daily in San Carlos, CA
Expected Salary Range
● $175,000 - $215,000
Thank you for your interest. seadcese