Position Summary
We are seeking a hands-on Senior Manager, Operational Technology to join our dynamic team. This key leadership role reports directly to the Senior Director of IT and will be responsible for overseeing the technical operations and infrastructure within an industrial and cell therapy manufacturing lab environment, ensuring 24x7 operational support.
The ideal candidate will be a strategic thinker who will roll up their sleeves and execute. With a small, agile team, this role requires someone who can seamlessly transition between high-level strategy and detailed, hands-on work. The ability to communicate effectively with senior leadership and across all levels of the organization is crucial for success in this position.
We're looking for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment, is comfortable wearing multiple hats, and is ready to tackle diverse challenges as our company grows.
Responsibilities
- This position will be responsible for the overall management and delivery of OT/ systems and technology in the company industrial and cell manufacturing manufacturing environments
- Contribute and maintain a robust OT roadmap of applications including definition of project objectives, prioritization, and implementation plans
- Ensure OT production environments adhere to security best practices and comply with relevant regulations
- This position will directly interact with the business functions on key use cases and priorities
- Provide technical support and troubleshooting for production-related OT/IT issues, ensuring minimal disruption to 24x7 operations
- Implement and monitor OT production systems to guarantee 24x7 uptime and reliability, including network, server, biotech manufacturing lab, and warehouse technology
- Develop and deliver training programs for new OT staff relating to production environment
- Contribute to creating SOPs, Policies, and Process and System maps for applications
- Ensure compliance with industry regulations, standards, and best practices related to OT and data security
Requirements
- Bachelor's Degree in related field or proper training 10+ years of relevant experience
- Previous leadership experience is nice to have
- Proven experience in IT management with a manufacturing or industrial setting, with a strong focus on 24x7 operational support
- Experience with network architecture, monitoring, server management, and cybersecurity best practices
- Experience with Fortigate firewalls, Hirschmann industrial switches, lab and warehouse equipment
- Experience with various applications such as Nutanix Prism, SharePoint, and JIRA
- Experience working in a biotech regulated environment
- Knowledge of and experience with current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) required
- Experience working in a fast-paced start-up environment
- Excellent interpersonal skills and customer orientation
- Ability to interact with senior management to map business priorities to IT needs, as well as in various settings such as steering committees, 1:1s, and presentations
- Comfortable in a fast-paced start-up company environment with minimal direction and changing priorities
- Ability to be a strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work under pressure
- Self-awareness, integrity, authenticity, and a growth mindset
- Requires availability for on-call support and extended hours during critical system issues to maintain 24x7 operations
- This will be a full time onsite position in Bridgewater New Jersey
What We Do
Cellares is revolutionizing cell therapy manufacturing. We are developing a one-of-a-kind solution, The Cell Shuttle, to overcome the challenges associated with manufacturing so these life-saving therapies are affordable and widely available to patients who can benefit.
The clinical impact of cell therapy in treating cancer has been proven, but this therapeutic approach has several limitations, especially in manufacturing, leaving extremely sick patients waiting for treatment and desperate for hope.
Since cell therapy is currently produced for a single patient at a time, it is expensive to manufacture, requiring significant time and resources, and is difficult to scale.
Preclinical and clinical scientists, as well as commercial cell therapy manufacturers also lack the options to fully automate their manufacturing process quickly, safely, cost-effectively and at the scale they need.
The Cell Shuttle is an automated and closed end-to-end manufacturing solution that is flexible and scalable, enabling customers to run exact processes specified for their cell therapy. Compared with the current manual manufacturing processes for cell therapy, the Cell Shuttle’s next-generation automated manufacturing solution has 10 times the scalability (meaning 10 times more patient doses can be produced simultaneously), enables a three-fold reduction in process failure rates and will reduce the per-patient manufacturing cost by up to 70 percent for most processes.
