About the job

📍 Location: Giesbeek (Arnhem Area), primarily on-site

⭐ Experience Level: Manager (5+ years of relevant experience in leading a team)

📩 Reports to: Chief Science Officer, Peter den Hartog

🚀 Purpose of the Role

As Lab Manager, you lead Antonie’s laboratory team and actively contribute to day-to-day laboratory activities. You ensure that laboratory operations are safe, reliable and efficient, and that results are delivered on time and to a demonstrably high standard. You combine supportive leadership with expertise in soil biology, an aptitude for technology and a practical, hands-on approach.

You develop people, processes and systems in line with Antonie’s growth and take the lead in adopting new laboratory techniques, automation and digitalisation. As the public face of the laboratory team, you represent Antonie to customers and partners. With excellent communication skills, you make complex topics easy to understand and communicate the capabilities and added value of our activities with conviction and enthusiasm. You build trust and inspire customers and partners through the team’s expertise and capabilities.

🔍 Key Tasks and Responsibilities

Leadership and Team Development

• Provides day-to-day leadership to the laboratory team and creates a safe, supportive and results-oriented working environment.

• Coaches employees in their professional and personal development and provides clear, timely feedback.

• Allocates responsibilities, monitors workloads and encourages ownership, collaboration and continuous improvement.

• Is visible and approachable on-site and actively contributes to laboratory work when required.

Quality and Safety

• Ensures that working methods, protocols and records are consistently applied and kept up to date.

• Monitors the quality, reproducibility and traceability of analyses and manages performance using appropriate quality indicators.

• Ensures a safe working environment and compliance with relevant legislation, regulations, safety requirements and internal procedures.

• Investigates deviations and incidents, determines corrective actions and ensures documented follow-up.

Technological Innovation

• Acts as the functional owner of laboratory processes and ensures that data is accurate, complete and traceable.

• Works with Engineering, Data Science and Sales on integrations, automation and scalable digital workflows.

• Keeps up with developments in laboratory technology, soil biology and digitalisation, translating promising innovations into tangible improvements.

• Initiates and oversees the validation and implementation of new equipment, methods and systems.

Collaboration and Constructive Challenge

• Works closely with Delivery, Support, Engineering, Data Science and Sales.

• Communicates clearly about capacity, risks, quality, dependencies and feasibility.

• Sets priorities and boundaries, communicates expectations and provides constructive challenge when quality, safety, capacity or schedules are under pressure.

• Translates operational insights from the laboratory into improvement proposals and well-supported recommendations for management.

Customer and Partner Relations

• Acts as the public face of the laboratory team and the main point of contact for laboratory-related questions from customers and partners.

• Presents the team’s activities, expertise and capabilities in an accessible, enthusiastic and persuasive way.

• Clearly demonstrates the added value of Antonie’s services, aligning this with the needs of customers and partners.

• Delivers presentations, demonstrations and laboratory tours that showcase the team’s expertise and leave a strong, positive impression.

• Advises customers on optimal laboratory setup and appropriate protocols for delivering Antonie’s services.

Continuous Improvement and Scalability

• Analyses performance and bottlenecks and improves processes in terms of quality, turnaround time, costs and reliability.

• Standardises working methods so that the laboratory can scale in a controlled manner as sample volumes, analytical methods and applications increase.

• Ensures that knowledge, procedures and responsibilities are well documented and do not depend on a single individual.

• Designs processes and working methods to make optimal use of available capacity.

🎓  What you bring

• Ability to work and think at an advanced bachelor’s or university level, preferably in soil biology, microbiology, biotechnology, life sciences or a related discipline.

• At least five years of experience managing a laboratory and directly leading and developing a team.

• Expertise in, or a strong affinity with, soil biology and laboratory analysis of soil samples.

• Experience with laboratory information management systems (LIMS) and an affinity with IT, data quality, process automation and system integrations.

• Technically curious and able to assess, validate and implement new techniques in practice.

• A supportive leader with a coaching approach who actively contributes to laboratory work and supports employees in their day-to-day activities.

• Practical and willing to roll up their sleeves.

• A persuasive and enthusiastic representative of the team who builds trust and engages customers and partners.

• Assertive and decisive; confident in setting boundaries, asking probing questions and constructively challenging others.

• Strong organisational, prioritisation, problem-solving and communication skills.

🌟 Why Join Antonie?

🚀 Career Growth

Join a fast-growing company where you can develop your skills, work on high-impact projects, and contribute to sustainable agriculture.

🎁 What We Offer

• A challenging role with direct impact

• Of course: a competitive salary and 25 vacation days

• Plenty of opportunities for personal and professional growth

• Flexibility in your working hours and location

• A company laptop to support your work

• A monthly communication allowance and a work-from-home allowance

• A dynamic and engaged international team of 30+ colleagues

• A fantastic work environment based on our four Core Values: Drive our Dreams | Deliver the Best | Engage with Passion | Collaborate to Flourish
  
  

 📬 Ready to Apply?

Are you excited to use your skills to make a difference? We’d love to hear from you! Send your resume and a short motivation letter to our People & Culture team: people@antonie.ai