🐟 We're Hiring: Aquaculture Manager
📍 Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)
🕒 Employment Type: Full-Time
💼 Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior
🌐 Work Arrangement: Fully Remote
About Us
We are an aquaculture-focused organization committed to sustainable aquatic food production, responsible resource management, biological performance, operational excellence, and innovation across modern aquaculture systems.
Our distributed teams collaborate across Aquaculture Operations, Marine Biology, Fisheries Science, Hatchery Management, Feed & Nutrition, Water Quality, Veterinary Services, Engineering, Procurement, Quality, EHS, Sustainability, Research & Development, Finance, and Executive Leadership to deliver productive, efficient, and environmentally responsible aquaculture operations.
The Role
We are seeking an experienced Aquaculture Manager to lead aquaculture operations, production planning, stock management, hatchery and grow-out activities, water-quality management, biosecurity, feeding programs, fish health, facility performance, and operational improvement.
The ideal candidate will combine strong aquaculture expertise with production management, biological analysis, resource planning, financial management, environmental stewardship, and team leadership.
The role will oversee the aquaculture production lifecycle from broodstock and hatchery operations through nursery, grow-out, harvesting, processing coordination, and performance analysis, depending on the organization's production model.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and implement comprehensive aquaculture production strategies aligned with organizational, commercial, sustainability, and biological objectives.
- Lead day-to-day aquaculture operations across hatchery, nursery, grow-out, broodstock, harvesting, and related activities.
- Develop annual and seasonal production plans covering stocking, feeding, growth targets, harvesting schedules, biomass, mortality, and resource requirements.
- Establish production targets for species, production systems, facilities, ponds, tanks, cages, raceways, or recirculating aquaculture systems as applicable.
- Monitor stocking densities, biomass, growth rates, feed consumption, survival rates, mortality, and production yields.
- Develop stocking and harvesting schedules based on biological performance, market requirements, facility capacity, and operational constraints.
- Monitor fish, shrimp, shellfish, or other cultured aquatic species throughout their production cycle.
- Ensure appropriate handling, grading, transfer, acclimation, stocking, and harvesting procedures are followed.
- Establish and monitor feeding strategies based on species requirements, biomass, water conditions, growth stage, and production objectives.
- Optimize feed conversion, feed utilization, feeding frequency, and feeding costs.
- Evaluate feed performance and work with Nutrition and Technical teams to improve feeding programs.
- Monitor water-quality parameters including temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, ammonia, nitrite, turbidity, alkalinity, and other relevant indicators.
- Establish water-quality monitoring schedules, thresholds, corrective actions, and escalation procedures.
- Coordinate with Engineering and Operations teams to maintain pumps, aeration, filtration, water-treatment, circulation, oxygenation, and other critical systems.
- Monitor water exchange, filtration, aeration, oxygen supply, and other environmental-control processes.
- Coordinate with aquatic veterinarians, fish-health specialists, laboratories, and diagnostic providers where applicable.
- Establish disease-monitoring and response procedures.
- Coordinate sampling, laboratory testing, diagnostics, treatment, and recovery programs where appropriate and legally permitted.
- Maintain comprehensive fish-health and mortality records.
- Investigate abnormal mortality events and develop corrective and preventive actions.
- Work closely with Research & Development teams on genetics, breeding, nutrition, disease prevention, water management, production systems, and species improvement.
- Support selective-breeding and broodstock-management programs where applicable.
- Manage broodstock selection, conditioning, spawning, egg collection, larval production, and hatchery performance.
- Monitor hatchery indicators such as fertilization, hatching, larval survival, nursery survival, and juvenile quality.
- Establish procedures for nursery and grow-out operations.
- Monitor growth curves and compare actual performance against biological targets.
- Conduct biomass estimates and stock assessments using appropriate sampling and measurement techniques.
- Develop strategies to improve growth rates, survival, feed efficiency, and production yield.
- Monitor carrying capacity and prevent excessive stocking densities or environmental stress.
- Coordinate harvesting activities and ensure products meet required quality, handling, and food-safety standards.
- Coordinate with Processing, Logistics, Sales, and Supply Chain teams regarding harvest volumes, timing, storage, transportation, and customer requirements.
- Minimize post-harvest losses and maintain appropriate product-handling procedures.
- Develop and monitor production budgets covering feed, labor, energy, water, medication or treatment, equipment, maintenance, seedstock, testing, and other operating costs.
- Develop and monitor aquaculture KPIs and management dashboards.
- Ensure accurate and timely production records and reporting.
- Maintain documentation covering stocking, feeding, water quality, health, mortality, treatments, harvesting, equipment, and environmental performance.
- Ensure compliance with applicable aquaculture, fisheries, animal-health, food-safety, environmental, water-use, and occupational-safety requirements.
- Maintain required licenses, permits, approvals, registrations, and regulatory records.
- Coordinate regulatory inspections and respond to relevant authority requirements.
- Monitor environmental impacts associated with aquaculture operations.
- Implement controls for wastewater, nutrient discharge, chemical use, waste, energy consumption, water use, and other environmental impacts.
- Develop sustainable aquaculture practices that reduce resource consumption and environmental footprint.
- Monitor environmental carrying capacity and potential impacts on surrounding aquatic ecosystems where applicable.
- Coordinate environmental monitoring, sampling, reporting, and corrective actions.
- Develop emergency-response procedures covering mass mortality, disease outbreaks, oxygen failure, water-quality deterioration, equipment failure, extreme weather, flooding, power interruption, and other operational emergencies.
- Manage relationships with research institutions, laboratories, veterinary specialists, technology providers, regulators, customers, and industry partners.
- Represent the organization at relevant aquaculture, fisheries, sustainability, scientific, and industry forums.
- Monitor developments in aquaculture technology, species genetics, feed innovation, disease management, automation, sustainability, and market trends.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Performance will be measured through a combination of biological, operational, financial, environmental, and commercial KPIs, including:
- Production volume
- Survival rate
- Growth rate
- Feed conversion ratio
- Feed efficiency
- Biomass yield
- Stocking density
- Mortality rate
- Disease incidence
- Hatchery survival
- Larval/juvenile survival
- Harvest yield
- Production cost per kilogram
- Feed cost per kilogram
- Energy consumption per unit of production
- Water consumption
- Water-quality compliance
- Biosecurity compliance
- Environmental compliance
- Harvest schedule adherence
- Product-quality performance
- Facility utilization
- Production forecast accuracy
- Employee safety performance
Candidate Profile
The successful candidate should have strong experience in aquaculture production, hatchery management, fish farming, shrimp farming, marine biology, fisheries science, aquatic animal health, or a closely related discipline.
Experience managing commercial-scale aquaculture operations, hatcheries, RAS facilities, ponds, cages, marine farms, or integrated aquaculture systems would be highly advantageous.
The candidate should combine strong biological knowledge with commercial and operational management capabilities.
What You'll Bring
- Proven experience in aquaculture, fisheries, marine biology, aquatic sciences, or a related field.
- Strong knowledge of aquaculture production systems and aquatic animal biology.
- Experience managing hatchery, nursery, grow-out, broodstock, or harvesting operations.
- Strong understanding of water-quality management and aquatic environmental conditions.
- Experience with feeding programs, biomass management, growth monitoring, and production optimization.
- Strong knowledge of aquaculture biosecurity and disease-prevention practices.
- Experience monitoring fish, shrimp, shellfish, or other cultured aquatic species.
- Understanding of aquatic animal health, disease identification, diagnostics, and treatment protocols.
- Experience with RAS, ponds, cages, raceways, biofloc, hatchery, or other aquaculture systems is advantageous.
- Strong production planning, budgeting, and cost-management capabilities.
- Experience using aquaculture production data and analytics to improve operational performance.
- Familiarity with aquaculture automation, sensors, remote monitoring, and smart-farming technologies is advantageous.
- Excellent leadership, communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder-management skills.
- Strong ability to respond effectively to biological emergencies and operational disruptions.
- Highly organized, analytical, hands-on, and results-driven.
- Master's degree in Aquaculture, Fisheries, Marine Biology, or a related field is advantageous.
- Professional certifications in aquaculture, aquatic animal health, environmental management, or related disciplines are advantageous.
- Experience working within the UAE or wider GCC aquaculture, fisheries, food-production, or marine environment is highly desirable.