Director of Young Plant Production

Brief Description

The Technical Director sets the measurement standard across all cultivation sites for handheld and portable instruments, fixed environmental sensing, and irrigation and fertigation metering. They define what “in tolerance,” “in service,” and “field ready” mean for each tool, design the processes by which growers use those tools and by which those tools are maintained, and audit every site against that standard. This role identifies and flags problems; Facilities and Maintenance perform the physical service and repair. This role holds independent authority to remove any instrument or tool from service and to escalate non-compliance directly to site leadership.

This is a builder role for a deeply experienced horticulturist who is as comfortable with a quantum sensor and a calibration record as with a crop. You’ll create a technical function that does not exist here today, and the standards you write will govern how every grower at every site measures their plants. The responsibilities below capture the core of this role, but as Glass House Brands grows quickly, your scope may evolve to match new opportunities and business needs.

Requirements

• 10 years of commercial horticulture or controlled-environment agriculture experience, with at least 5 years in a technical, standards, or leadership capacity.
• Degree in horticulture, plant science, agricultural engineering, or equivalent experience.
• Deep working knowledge of greenhouse instrumentation — light and quantum sensors, pH and EC meters, substrate and climate sensing — including how those instruments drift and fail.
• Hands-on experience with climate control and fertigation systems; Priva or a comparable platform preferred.
• Demonstrated experience building calibration, verification, or quality programs and the documentation behind them.
• Working familiarity with large-scale greenhouse operations and the practical realities of how tools are used in the field.
• Experience in cannabis cultivation or another regulated agricultural environment is a plus.
  
  

Skills

• Strong technical judgment, with the ability to distinguish instrument error, equipment failure, and genuine crop response.
• Clear, credible communicator who can tell a grower their meter is wrong and keep the working relationship intact.
• Disciplined documentation and record-keeping practices.
• Ability to drive compliance through standards and influence rather than direct authority.
• Effective partnership across Cultivation, Engineering, Facilities, IT, and Procurement.
• Practical problem-solving in a live production environment where the crop cannot pause.
• Data literacy sufficient to identify drift, trend, and outlier patterns in sensor and meter records.
  
  

Personal Attributes

• Rigorous and detail-driven, with a low tolerance for “close enough.”
• High integrity — reports what was actually found, not what is convenient.
• Self-directed, with the initiative to build a function from the ground up.
• Respectful and collaborative with the site teams whose work this role inspects.
  
  

Summary

We’re looking for a Technical Director to own the accuracy, readiness, and correct use of every instrument and tool our cultivation teams make decisions with. Reporting to the Vice President of Cultivation, this role exists because our growing specifications, irrigation recipes, and climate targets are only as reliable as the meters, sensors, and tools used to read and execute them. A pH pen drifting half a point, a light meter that hasn’t been referenced in a year, or a CO2 distribution line delivering unevenly across a bay will quietly produce poor decisions from sound specifications — and today we have no consistent way to know.