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Lead AI & OT Architect

Emeryville, CA
About us:
Based in Berkeley, CA, UPSIDE Foods grows meat, poultry, and seafood directly from real animal cells. These products are not vegan or vegetarian—they are delicious meat, made without the need to raise and slaughter billions of animals. In doing so, the company aims to address some of the most pressing environmental, animal welfare, and public health challenges, while still giving people the meat they love. 
 
Founded as the world’s first cultivated meat company in 2015, UPSIDE Foods (formerly Memphis Meats) has achieved numerous industry-defining milestones, including being the first company to produce multiple species of meat (beef, chicken, and duck) and to sell a cultivated meat product in the United States. The company believes that people shouldn’t have to choose between the foods they love and a thriving planet, and is working to build a better food system with access to delicious, humane, and sustainable meat, poultry, and seafood. 
 
UPSIDE Foods has won various industry awards, including New York Times’ Good Tech Awards, FastCo’s Next Big Thing in Tech and World Changing Ideas Awards, and the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation by the National Association for Business Resources. UPSIDE Foods has raised a total of $608 million, including from the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG), Baillie Gifford, Bill Gates, Cargill, John Doerr, John Mackey, Kimbal and Christiana Musk, Norwest, Richard Branson, Softbank, Temasek, Threshold, Tyson Foods, and others.
 
About this job:
We are seeking a Lead Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Operational Technology (OT) Architect to drive the end-to-end design, development, and deployment of intelligence systems and solutions that accelerate UPSIDE’s cultivated meat R&D and manufacturing. This principal-level role reports into the Head of Enterprise Intelligence & Operations, and works alongside a fantastic team of data software, data science, and IT professionals. Join us to invent AI that will help feed the planet sustainably – and earn meaningful equity in a company poised to transform a trillion-dollar industry.
 
Responsibilities Include:
  • Steer the AI technical roadmap: You’ll be UPSIDE’s senior technical expert on AI, partnering with Todd to set company-wide AI strategy. You’ll develop deep POVs on where AI can add value for UPSIDE, choosing applications for machine-learning models, deep-learning neural networks, and large-language models that address our challenges. You’ll be a thought-leader on where we build vs buy vs partner, you’ll liaise with partners and make the call on what technologies we select, and you’ll ensure the roadmap is balanced: quick vs long-term value; risk vs reward. You’ll have green-field authority and the mandate to design and ship whatever you can envision that generates the most value. 
  • Build Data as a Product: AI value will always be gated by our data foundation (millions of data points per day and growing), so you’ll be responsible for articulating the value of various data based on your insights from team-mates across science, technology, data, and IT. You’ll be elbow-to-elbow as technical leaders invent new biomanufacturing processes or implement new sensors or get blocked by lack of data – and from those insights you’ll prioritize and make plans so we best leverage data and advanced computing. When the organization needs to capture data better, you champion the need for change. Your work enables teams to learn faster, shifting breakthroughs from months to weeks.  
  • Activate Smart Operational Technology: Our manufacturing and lab environments are equipped with sophisticated systems from Industrial Control Systems (e.g., Rockwell) to Quality systems (e.g., batch records, environmental monitoring) to Bioreactor controls, sensors, and automation. You’ll ensure our OT and IT systems get the right data to the right places to power our AI/ML/App solutions. In partnership with teams like Process Automation, you might architect data ingestion and processing for a new sensor, or advise on how to crosswalk bioreactor tags across scales, or troubleshoot data pipelines between MFG and lab data streams.
  • Architect AI/ML solutions for a new industry: Bold in your AI/ML expertise and humble given the sci/tech skills of your stakeholders, you’ll articulate major bets in AI that will add to our company’s value. You’ll translate ideas and pain-points into architecture diagrams for intelligence products, comfortable in both communicating the high-level value of these solutions and detailing the requirements and work-efforts to achieve them. You’ll pick and choose between models and methods; the solutions you design will incorporate leading-edge AI awareness in what approaches handle which challenges best. You’ll demonstrate wisdom in how you prototype rapidly to test a POV and in how and when you build for scale. 
  • Own the E2E Development: Once the solution is clear, you’ll lead from the front, getting the team going from zero to one with a working prototype while explaining how they can co-develop. When you find critical gaps in data or systems, you get into the ambiguity, make a plan, and set the team’s course – then code alongside them. You establish best practice for our AI systems (code quality, MLOps, synthetic data, data authority) and steer the team towards production deployments that are both nimble and reliable. Once deployed, you ensure the team can maintain and support these solutions as part of our overall intelligence platform.
About You:
  • Ideal is Masters Degree or PhD (in computer science, data science, computational biology, or any AI/ML-heavy role (e.g., Robotics Manufacturing automation, etc).
  • Undergraduate is OK provided the AI/ML expertise is sufficient from on-the-job learning.
  • Hybrid AI + OT track record (10+ yrs): Hands‑on delivery of at least five production AI/ML solutions that pulled data from plant‑floor or lab operational technology systems, yielding measurable business impact. AI/ML experience may come from relevant academia or consulting.
  • Systems and coding expertise: Python, modern ML/DL frameworks, and cloud (AWS/GCP) architecture; comfortable designing modular, scalable services and data pipelines. Bonus if you’ve got expertise in heterogeneous data pipeline management / significant ETL skills.
  • MLOps & model governance: Proven ability to set up version control, CI/CD for ML, model registry, monitoring, and synthetic‑data or data‑quality practices in regulated or mission‑critical environments.
  • Startup execution & frugality: Proven ability to ship production AI in resource‑constrained settings—balancing hands‑on speed with solid engineering practice.
  • Domain awareness: Familiar with sensors, historians (e.g., OSIsoft PI), MES/LIMS, and the constraints of GMP or other regulated manufacturing; biotech/pharma experience is a plus.
  • Product‑centric collaborator: Skilled at translating science/engineering needs into road‑mapped solutions, communicating value to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
  • Anything related to AI/ML certificates, or MES/SCATA systems, or cloud platforms like AWS, SageMaker, Bedrock.
Compensation Range: $210,000 - $250,000*
*Pay may vary depending on factors including job-related knowledge and skills.
 
UPSIDE Benefits!
  • Stock options for all full-time incoming team members!
  • 90-100% employer-paid healthcare premiums for team members (medical [including HSA and FSA], dental, and vision)
  • Pet insurance for your furry family members!
  • Unlimited PTO
  • Employee Engagement Council
  • Company-sponsored learning & development opportunities
 
UPSIDE Foods is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Our company-wide mission is to create a product for everyone, so we are deeply committed to having teams and leaders that reflect this mission.

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