Biosystems Engineer
Designs and maintains the living-systems hardware that keeps animals alive across holding and breeding facilities.
Role Summary
The Biosystems Engineer designs and maintains the living-systems hardware that keeps animals alive — the AquaLink sensor mesh, filtration trains, reservoirs, and reverse-osmosis water production across the Broodstock Ark and the holding and breeding facilities. Working under the Chief Engineer and shoulder-to-shoulder with Husbandry, the Engineer tunes life-support setpoints to each system's inhabitants and keeps redundancy and alarm coverage live on every critical loop. The role is accountable for systems where a failure does not trip a breaker — it kills animals — so preventive maintenance, redundancy, and fast fault diagnosis are not best practice but the whole job. When the water holds steady through the night, no one notices; that silence is the work.
Key Responsibilities
- Maintain the AquaLink mesh — sensors, controllers, and telemetry uplinks — and keep its data flowing clean to Husbandry and NEREID.
- Operate filtration, reservoir, and reverse-osmosis water-production systems, holding output within the bands each species requires.
- Tune life-support setpoints jointly with Husbandry for every system's inhabitants, documenting each change.
- Diagnose and repair pumps, valves, dosing hardware, and controls, restoring service before a parameter excursion becomes a loss.
- Maintain redundancy, fail-over, and alarm coverage on every critical life-support loop, and test it on schedule.
- Hold the preventive-maintenance record and spares stock for all biosystems hardware, declaring systems fit before stocking new animals.
Required Qualifications
- Mechanical, water-systems, or process-engineering background.
- Hands-on filtration, RO, and pumping-system experience.
- Sensor-network and controls troubleshooting ability.
- Comfort owning systems where failure kills animals.
Preferred Qualifications
- Aquaculture or aquarium life-support engineering experience.
- Familiarity with the AquaLink mesh and dosing automation.
- Instrumentation and PLC/controls programming skills.
- On-call availability for life-support faults.
Certifications
Curricula are delivered through the Training Academy; currency is tracked on the HR training matrix.
| Certification | Status at Hire | Renewal |
|---|---|---|
| Life-Support Systems Engineering | Required | Annual |
| Water-Quality & Chemical-Dosing Safety | Required ≤ 60 d | 24 months |
| Electrical & Controls Safety | Required | 24 months |
| AquaLink Mesh Administration | Preferred | Annual |
Physical & Hazard Requirements
- Work safely with energised systems, pressurised water, and dosing chemicals.
- Pass annual electrical-safety and chemical-handling medical.
- Respond on-call to life-support faults at any hour, including nights.
- Carry the burden of systems whose failure causes animal loss.
Compensation Band
Career Path
The Biosystems Engineer (O-3) advances toward Chief Engineer (O-5) or laterals to the Climate / Life-Support Engineer for the thermal and pressure-cascade track. The role partners daily with Husbandry and feeds design lessons to the Restoration team's release-site infrastructure.
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