Ava Technologies in Vancouver, BC is seeking a Plant Scientist!
ABOUT Ava Technologies
Who Are We?
AVA Technologies Inc. is a hydroponics tech startup and consumer brand, passionate about reconnecting people with their green thumbs. Our mission is to empower a greener future where growing food is easily accessible to all. By providing AVA products to homes, we aim to shift society’s preference away from mass agriculture to more local, nutritious, and sustainable options.
Our Why: At AVA, we believe the world needs to grow more plants to appreciate nature and decrease their footprints.
Our Mission: Empower anyone, anywhere to grow anything.
Our Vision: An AVA-powered garden in every home.
We’re looking for a patient, hands-on, growth-minded, nurturing, plant-loving person to join the AVA Family. This role will be integral to helping AVA launch new innovations and optimize plant performance for already launched plants.
Our Core Values:
Get Growing
Pursue growth and learning. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch TED Talks, try new things, and wear different hats. Taking action is better than waiting too long and losing your chance. It’s OK to make mistakes, as long as we learn from them. Invest in yourself, stay hungry.
Relentlessly Innovate and Create
We don’t compete on price. We’re innovators. We create value and delight customers. We’re the first ever IoT indoor smart garden. Technology is at the forefront of everything we do. Go the extra mile. Exceed expectations. WOW our customers at every touchpoint.
Own Your Ikigai
Ikigai is the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what we can be paid for. We aren’t Big Brother. We embrace diversity and inclusion. Creativity is welcome. Show your personality. Do what you stand for. Trust your gut and intuition.
We not Me
We are the AVA Family; everything we do should be for the greater good of the company even though the task at hand might not always be the most fun or exciting. Be humble, enthusiastic, persistent, and patient. Care for each other. Support each other. Use your team.
DESIRED QUALITIES
You should love to grow plants, have experience with different types of crops, have knowledge of creating experiments with controls/manipulating environmental variables, be interested in indoor growing and AgTech and be comfortable in the startup environment. This is a very hands-on position working with our plants; under the supervision of your supervisor, the Plant Scientist will be entirely responsible for the grow room’s maintenance.
You must have exceptional verbal and written communication, a talent for initiating tasks with minimal supervision, bounce back from setbacks with positivity, and have at least 2 years of personal or commercial growing experience in an indoor or outdoor setting! You are sociable, a self-starter, observant to small details, reliable, and can maintain a clean and organized grow room with ease. We are also looking for someone eager to write creative content to help our customers with plant care.
Skills:
Must have experience with:
At least 2 years experience growing a wide variety of plants such as:
- Leafy greens
- Annual, biennial and perennial herbs
- Flowers (edible and/or ornamental)
- Fruiting crops (e.g. beans, peas, hot and/or sweet peppers, tomatoes, etc.)
Nice to have experience:
- Growing hydroponically (preferred, but not mandatory)
- Growing plants under LEDs
- Growing fruit (blueberries, strawberries, etc.), microgreens, houseplants, cannabis and gourmet mushrooms
- Data analysis and visualisation
Overall:
- Strong communication, writing, and interpersonal skills
- Ability to meet deadlines and to effectively manage multiple projects
- Ability to exercise good judgement and be proactive
- Demonstrate responsibility and ownership, seeing things through and manage projects to completion
- Multitasker who can work well in a high pressure, multiple-deadline environment, even under minimal supervision and direct styles of leadership
- Takes initiative and can exercise independent judgement given appropriate overall direction and objectives
JOB TASKS
Responsibilities include:
- Monitoring the health of plants in the grow room by observing small details related to chlorosis, tip burn, pest damage, nutrient deficiency, nutrient toxicity, etc.
- Calculating nutrient solution concentrations for each plant category and measuring their pH and EC over the course of the experiments
- Accurately measuring nutrients using a pipette, dropper, syringe and/or scale
Researching plants macro and micro nutrient requirements, lighting requirements and growing information. - Pruning weekly to ensure bushier plant growth and accurately recording in Google Sheets or internal software
- Using various harvesting techniques (e.g. cut-and-come again, nodal pruning, etc.) and accurately recording in Google Sheets or internal software
- Seeding new pods and ensuring proper sowing and documentation of germination needs (e.g. seed depth, light exposure, etc.)
- Suggest solutions on how to eliminate plant issues and improve plant growth for our customers
- Create custom growing recipes for each plant category and pod pack (e.g. LEDs, watering, nutrients)
- Ensure our seeds are organized, in stock and notifying your supervisor several weeks in advance when an order needs to be placed
- Researching environmentally conscious techniques to prevent or eradicate pest infestations
- Help write grant funding specific to plant science expansion and plant innovation in the grow room
- Help create plant customer support content (written, video, photos)
Act as an internal resource for diagnosing plant issues for our co-op students and other AVA employees
JOB DETAILS
Term: Flexible – Mid to late December
Full time, permanent
Hours per week: 40
Minimum 3 days in the office
Wage: $43,000-55,000 depending on experience
PERKS:
- Flexible Schedule and Office Hours
- The Plant Science department has a rotating 3 days in the office, 2 days work from home (WFH) schedule.
- With supervisor and/or team approval, work at times (mornings/evenings) that you are most productive on
scheduled WFH days (must attend meetings).
- Training Budget
- For all staff, we provide DISC assessments and communication training through a third party.
- Access to professional development courses of choice
- Food-loving, hard-working and collaborative group passionate about helping the world get growing.
TO APPLY
Please email jessica@avagrows.com with the title “Plant Scientist – [Your Full Name] – [Application Date in format MM.DD.YY]”.
Attach your resume and copy paste your 16personalities in the application (link to the test here: https://www.16personalities.com/).
Deadline to apply: October 28th, 2022
When applying, please mention you saw this posting at youngagrarians.org
LEARN MORE ABOUT Ava Technologies
Website: avagrows.com
Facebook: AVASmartGarden
Instagram: @avasmartgarden
