Laboratory Director

Lab Director Role Overview

We're hiring a founding Lab Director to build and own our new Salt Lake City laboratory end-to-end.

This is not a narrow operational role. You are the first lab leadership hire at this location, responsible for standing up the entire lab - infrastructure, people, methods, quality systems, and accreditation - from day one.

Role

The core of this role is building a high-performing analytical testing operation from scratch. We already have a fully operational lab in Ann Arbor with validated methods, established workflows, and proven quality systems. The focus is on:

• Standing up the Salt Lake City lab with infrastructure, instruments, and workflows operational within the first 90 days
• Hiring, training, and leading the founding technical team across chemistry, microbiology, and sample intake
• Achieving ISO 17025 accreditation on an aggressive timeline
• Building systems that scale cleanly from hundreds to thousands of samples per week across multiple testing functions
  
  

You will also contribute to broader company-level decisions on lab strategy, service menu expansion, and cross-site coordination between Ann Arbor and Salt Lake City.

This lab is being built to support high-throughput testing for some of the largest manufacturers and brands in the United States. Your work will support products distributed at national scale. Results must be accurate, consistent, and defensible, even under heavy volume and tight turnaround times.

Standing up a fully accredited, high-throughput commercial testing lab is non-trivial. This role requires strong technical judgment across multiple analytical disciplines, operational rigor, and the ability to lead through ambiguity.

You will operate with high agency and autonomy. You are expected to:

• Own the Salt Lake City lab end-to-end
• Design systems that scale under real commercial demand
• Identify and eliminate bottlenecks proactively across the entire operation
• Maintain a high bar for quality, throughput, and reliability across every function
• Hire and develop the team that will run the lab long-term
  
  

You will work closely with leadership and the Ann Arbor team, but you are the owner of this lab.

This Role Is Ideal For Someone Who

• Has deep experience running analytical or testing laboratories, ideally in a commercial or regulated environment
• Has successfully stood up or significantly scaled a lab operation
• Understands ISO 17025 accreditation and has led a lab through the process
• Thrives in high-throughput environments where speed and accuracy both matter
• Thinks in systems, not just individual projects
• Wants to build something from zero to one
  
  

This role is not a fit for someone who prefers narrowly defined responsibilities or research-focused environments. You will be expected to create structure where it does not yet exist and make judgment calls under uncertainty every day.

This is a full-time, in-person role in Salt Lake City.

What Success Looks Like In The First 90 Days

• Lab infrastructure stood up, instruments installed, and core workflows operational
• Founding technical team hired across chemistry, microbiology, and sample intake
• ISO 17025 accreditation process initiated with a clear timeline to certification
• Core methods transferred from Ann Arbor and validated for the Salt Lake City site
• Customer samples being processed and released with consistent turnaround times
• Early bottlenecks identified and resolved across intake, prep, testing, and reporting
• SOPs, training materials, and quality documentation in place and ready to scale with additional hires
  
  

Responsibilities

Own the Salt Lake City lab end-to-end

• Lead all lab operations including chemistry, microbiology, sample intake, and quality
• Oversee facility setup, instrument procurement and installation, and workflow design
• Ensure the lab meets internal standards and customer expectations from day one
  
  

Team building and leadership

• Hire, train, and develop the founding technical team
• Build a culture of quality, ownership, and operational rigor
• Establish performance expectations, training programs, and career development paths
• Turn tribal knowledge into systems, SOPs, and scalable processes
  
  

ISO 17025 accreditation and quality systems

• Lead the Salt Lake City lab through ISO 17025 accreditation
• Build and enforce documentation, traceability, and audit readiness
• Ensure all data and processes hold up under regulatory and customer scrutiny
• Partner with the Ann Arbor team to maintain consistency across sites
  
  

Method implementation and optimization

• Transfer validated methods from Ann Arbor and verify performance at the Salt Lake City site
• Support targeted method development and optimization as new analytes, matrices, and customer requirements emerge
• Ensure methods are transferable, repeatable, and aligned with business goals
  
  

High-throughput operations

• Design and operate workflows that scale from hundreds to thousands of samples per week
• Optimize batching, instrument utilization, and cross-functional handoffs for throughput and efficiency
• Reduce retests, minimize downtime, and improve overall lab productivity
• Build systems that maintain data quality under heavy sample volume
  
  

Cross-functional collaboration

• Work with operations, software, and sales teams to improve workflow efficiency and data flow
• Partner with leadership to identify bottlenecks and prioritize improvements
• Contribute to broader lab system design, service menu expansion, and scaling strategy across sites
  
  

Data integrity and customer-grade quality

• Ensure all data is accurate, traceable, and audit-ready
• Produce work that stands up to scrutiny from leading food, supplement, and consumer goods companies
• Recognize that testing quality, turnaround time, and consistency shape how customers experience Light Labs
  
  

Build for scale

• Help hire and train future scientists, technicians, and lab leadership
• Turn workflows into scalable systems and SOPs
• Contribute to building a high-performance testing operation from the ground up
  
  

Qualifications

• Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Chemistry, Microbiology, or a closely related field
• 7 years of experience in analytical or testing laboratories, with at least 2 years in a lab leadership or management role
• Hands-on experience across multiple analytical disciplines, with strong fundamentals in quality systems
• Demonstrated experience leading a lab through ISO 17025 accreditation or equivalent framework
• Strong understanding of sample prep, method validation, and quality control practices
• Experience hiring, training, and leading technical teams
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to operate independently and take full ownership of an entire lab function
  
  

Benefits

• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Relocation assistance
• Vision insurance