Senior Manager, Fermentation & Industrial Microbiology

At Houdek, we are pioneering sustainable solutions in agriculture by transforming soybeans into high-value ingredients that support animal health, environmental stewardship, and food system innovation. Based in Volga, South Dakota, we take pride in creating products that are rooted in science, powered by nature, and designed to make a meaningful difference.

We're growing fast and looking for people who want to be part of something bold and impactful. Our team works with purpose and pride, guided by the core values that shape our culture:

• Safety
  - We are committed to maintaining a safe, responsible, and healthy environment for all.
• Quality
  - From process to product, we hold ourselves to the highest standards.
• Respect
  - We foster a workplace where every voice matters and collaboration thrives.
• Transparency
  - We communicate clearly, honestly, and often with our teams and our partners.
• Innovation
  - We challenge convention, solve complex problems, and drive new possibilities every day.

Prairie Aqua Tech Manufacturing, LLC dba Houdek is a manufacturing company based in Volga South Dakota that is improving animal health and nutrition by providing high-quality feed ingredients. Using patent-pending technologies licensed on a worldwide, exclusive basis from South Dakota State University and developed internally, the Company is upgrading soybean meal to high-quality ingredients used in aquaculture and other animal feeds.

As the senior manufacturing leader for fermentation, this position owns the technical capability, reliability, and continuous improvement of Houdek's commercial fermentation process. The role combines industrial microbiology expertise, manufacturing leadership, process discipline, and people development. A primary expectation is to build the knowledge base of the entire fermentation organization by translating fermentation science into practical standards, training, troubleshooting methods, and decision-making tools.

• Own the technical and operational performance of manufacturing fermentation, including seed train, production fermentation, aseptic/sterile operations, contamination control, and related process controls.
• Build and sustain the manufacturing team's knowledge of industrial microbiology, organism physiology, seed train management, fermentation dynamics, critical process parameters, sanitation/sterilization, sampling, and troubleshooting.
• Continuously improve a structured technical training and qualification system that transfers knowledge to managers, supervisors, leads, and operators and reduces dependency on individual subject matter experts. Sanitary piping rebuilds, steam table understanding, sterile sampling apparatus, steam traps, melt sticks, plating and microscopy interpretation.
• Establish manufacturing standards, process-control strategies, escalation criteria, troubleshooting guides, and operating expectations for the fermentation process.
• Monitor and improve fermentation performance using process data and appropriate KPIs, including culture health, contamination events, consistency, cycle performance, rate, yield, and other measures relevant to reliable commercial production.
• Lead complex technical investigations and root cause analysis for fermentation deviations, contamination, sterilization concerns, abnormal culture behavior, and recurring process losses; ensure corrective actions are effective and sustained.
• Integrate microbiological, analytical, equipment, and operating data to identify process risks and move the organization from reactive troubleshooting toward predictive process management.
• Own continuous improvement of manufacturing fermentation SOPs, checklists, sampling plans, standard work, training materials, and technical documentation through disciplined change control.
• Develop Fermentation Managers/Supervisors and Leads as strong technical and people leaders capable of teaching the science behind the process.
• Partner with Quality, Engineering, Maintenance, Automation, and R&D as needed while maintaining Manufacturing ownership of commercial fermentation execution, reliability, and continuous improvement.
• Provide technical input to equipment, instrumentation, automation, analytical capability, and capital decisions that affect manufacturing fermentation performance.
• Lead a culture of Safety, Quality, Respect, Transparency, and Innovation and ensure manufacturing decisions balance people safety, product quality, process reliability, and business…