Strain Development Scientist

Join a fast-growing biotech company and take a central role in the science behind the next generation of bioderived crop protection, leading our strain-development work from the lab towards scalable production.

About Bionomic

Bionomic is a biotechnology startup developing the next generation of bioderived crop protection, with the mission to help build a more resilient future for farmers through biological alternatives to conventional chemical crop protection.

We use bacterial production systems to develop bioderived active ingredients. What started in the Dutch agricultural sector has grown into an ambition to bring these solutions to growers internationally.

We are now entering an important next phase. Over the coming two years, we will move our lead biological fungicide from advanced lab-scale development towards an application-ready product. That means further improving our production strains, increasing fermentation performance and robustness, scaling production from laboratory bioreactors towards pilot scale, and developing the downstream processing and formulation needed for consistent product quality.

At the same time, we will generate efficacy data across crops and applications, work towards the regulatory studies and dossier required for market entry, and validate our technology together with growers and commercial partners internationally. The aim is not only to advance our first product, but also to build the capabilities and platform needed to develop a broader pipeline of biological crop protection products.

We are a small and growing team based at the Leiden Bio Science Park. Joining Bionomic at this stage means helping to shape not only a product, but also how we develop, scale, and bring future biological solutions to market!

R&D at Bionomic

Our biotechnology R&D team is growing. Strain development, fermentation, downstream processing, and formulation are all carried out in-house and closely connected.

The disciplines work side by side to move our biological products from early-stage development towards robust, scalable, and commercially relevant products. The strain development team owns what goes into the reactor and how well it performs there; the fermentation team owns how that performance is translated into a scalable production process.

We combine this in-house development with a growing network of research, technical, and sector partners, while staying closely connected to the growers and market partners who ultimately determine whether a product succeeds in practice.

The role

We are looking for a Strain Development Scientist to take ownership of improving our Bacillus production strains.

Your primary focus will be to increase titer, yield, robustness, and reproducibility through hands-on strain engineering and data-driven experimentation. You will work from our existing development roadmap while having the freedom to challenge assumptions, propose new approaches, and help shape the next steps in our strain-development strategy.

You will work closely with our fermentation team to ensure that improvements made at flask scale translate into relevant performance in controlled bioreactor systems. Initially, your focus will be on our lead biological fungicide, with opportunities to contribute to future products and help build a broader strain-development platform over time.

Your tasks:

·         Design, construct, and screen Bacillus production strains using approaches such as chromosomal integration, knockouts, promoter engineering, genome editing, and pathway optimisation;

·         Improve strain performance for titer, yield, robustness, and reproducibility, using well-designed experiments and appropriate statistical approaches;

·         Evaluate promising strains under increasingly production-relevant conditions and work closely with fermentation colleagues as they move towards bioreactor validation;

·         Troubleshoot biological and technical bottlenecks and translate findings into pragmatic next experiments;

·         Help build a more systematic strain-development workflow over time, including structured screening, strain libraries, and iterative design-build-test-learn cycles;

·         Maintain clear experimental records, communicate findings across the R&D team and external partners, and contribute to strain-development strategies for future products.

About you

We are looking for a hands-on strain development scientist with an MSc or PhD in Biotechnology, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Bioengineering, Synthetic Biology, or a related field.

You bring:

·         Around 2–5 years of relevant working experience in industrial biotechnology, microbial production, or applied microbial R&D;

·         A strong track record in Bacillus strain engineering for microbial production, including the construction, modification, and screening of production strains;

·         Experience developing bacterial strains for the production of secondary metabolites, small molecules, peptides, or related fermentation-derived products;

·         Strong hands-on experience with bacterial genetic engineering, including chromosomal integration, knockout strategies, cloning, sequencing, and genome editing;

·         Experience designing and analysing strain-development experiments, troubleshooting bottlenecks, and translating data into clear next development steps;

·         Experience with microbial cultivation and an understanding of how strain performance translates from shake flasks towards controlled bioreactor systems;

·         Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

Preferred qualifications

·         Experience participating in a scale-up trajectory from shake flasks into controlled bioreactor systems, either directly or as part of a multidisciplinary R&D team;

·         Broader experience with metabolic engineering, promoter engineering, pathway optimisation, or systematic strain-development strategies;

·         Experience with structured strain screening, Design of Experiments, or high-throughput strain-development workflows;

·         Experience working closely with fermentation or process-development teams in an industrial setting.

What We Offer

·         The opportunity to work on biotechnology with direct real-world impact on agriculture, the environment, and the resilience of future food production;

·         A high degree of freedom to shape your own experiments, approach, and contribution to the strain-development roadmap;

·         The opportunity to grow with the company and take broader ownership of strain development as new products enter the pipeline;

·         A small, driven team with short lines, direct access to the founders, and visible impact from your work;

·         25 vacation days, travel allowance, a training budget, and flexibility in how you organise your work;

·         An informal and collaborative team culture, with regular team activities, borrels, and room to connect outside the lab.

At Bionomic, scientific decisions can quickly translate into real development progress. You will join at a stage where there is still plenty to build, giving you the opportunity to shape both our strain-development capabilities and the biological crop protection products that will ultimately reach growers.

Key Competences

·         Pragmatic and data-driven: you keep things practical, avoid overengineering, and make decisions based on evidence and clear arguments;

·         Clear and accountable: you communicate directly, make realistic commitments, and follow through on them: say what you do, do what you say;

·         Critical and pioneering: you challenge assumptions, think sharply about the problem, and are comfortable exploring unconventional routes when they may lead to a better result;

·         Resilient with perspective: you can deal with experiments that fail and priorities that shift without losing overview, perspective, or team energy

·         Collaborative and proactive: you actively involve colleagues, share ideas, help where needed, and enjoy working across strain development, fermentation, and the wider R&D team

·         Connected to the application: you are curious about how your work translates beyond the lab and into a product that ultimately needs to work for growers

Application process

We like to keep our hiring process practical and transparent. The process is planned as follows:

·         19–20 October: first-round interviews, focused on getting to know each other and discussing your experience, motivation, and expectations;

·         9–10 November: second-round interviews including a short technical case and presentation;

·         19 November: final round, including an introduction to the wider team.

Throughout the process, there will be plenty of room for you to ask questions and get a realistic picture of the role, the team, and where Bionomic is heading.