Head of Platform - Data and Ecosystem

Job Overview

We are looking for a dedicated and passionate Head of Platform - Data and Ecosystem to join our leadership team, where they will be responsible for defining and executing our data, partnership, and platform strategy. InnerPlant is changing how we think about agriculture by creating plants that can communicate what they need, when they need it. To make this bio-innovation actionable for farmers and industry collaborators, we're developing a robust platform that brings together data and ecosystem partners. This role will be critical in designing, building, and growing our data infrastructure and shared services and requires a combination of expertise in cloud data technology, detection hardware, and ag industry partnerships.

Reporting to InnerPlant's CEO, the Head of Platform will be responsible for setting the vision and strategy for our data architecture and work with our Biology, Commercialization, Operations, and Partnerships teams to make it a reality. In the medium-term, this role will have the ability to build a data engineering, data science, and partnership mgmt team. In the short-term, this role will build strategic relationships with major organizations in the agriculture industry, while aligning a go-to-market strategy with all of our internal departments. In addition to data engineering strategy, experience driving "first of their kind" partnerships with major industry players is highly desirable.

This is a highly-visible leadership position with the ability to actively influence our strategic roadmap. Also, as with working with any startup, this role will vary as we scale and grow. Clear communication, organization, and planning will be critical to success. You are polished, goal-oriented, and have strong conviction in your approach. You are passionate about sustainability and have a strong contrarian bent to do things differently than how the agriculture or biotech industries have done before.

Core responsibilities

• Design and roadmap the company's platform strategy - including how we collect detection information from our Smart Seeds, synthesize with a data platform, and pass along to other parties
• Set the company's commercialization strategy for data - including identifying partnership prospects and modeling out terms
• Manage, grow, and mentor a team of engineers /scientists across data engineering, business intelligence, and partnerships
• Identify opportunities to grow the business by pulling actionable insights out of complex data sets and conducting market/competitor research; create framework for determining market viability
• Influence and deepen our understanding of prospective customers (defined ideal customer profiles), products and value proposition across the company
• Own responsibility for execution on set targets
• Collaborate with leadership team to ensure clear goals and timely execution of commercialization plan
• Disseminate information between all departments
• Drive a strong culture of iterative learning and data innovation
• Represent InnerPlant at industry events, investor meetings, and public speaking slots
• This is a crazy startup - there is no job that you'd be unwilling to give your best shot

Requirements

The Candidate We're Looking for Has:

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science or related field (Masters or PhD preferred)
• 10+ years leading data platform / engineering teams and experience building big data pipelines using Python, SQL, and Apache Spark
• 5+ years deploying and maintaining ML models
• 5+ years in corporate strategy, data strategy, or business development that guide on roadmaps and build-buy-partner decision making
• Deep understanding of the agriculture technology ecosystem and its data flows/pipelines
• Track record of building a partnership ecosystem and developing high-impact, first-of-its-kind partnerships
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment (startup experience is a plus)
• Managerial skills to support, nurture, and motivate a growing team
• World-class communicator and presenter with the ability to simplify complex topics for your intended audience
• Skilled at context-shifting, managing multiple priorities, and finding order in chaos
• Passionate about sustainability and putting farmers first
• Humility and humor

Benefits

Working at InnerPlant

The US base salary range for this position is $150,000 - $210,000 + benefits. Within the range, individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

InnerPlant provides an amazing opportunity to work on some of the hardest problems facing humanity and help design the agricultural systems of the future. In addition to working with a fun team, we offer competitive compensation, insurance benefits, and flexible time-off.

InnerPlant provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.