Aquaculture Manager

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 a globally focused organization committed to developing efficient, sustainable, and commercially successful aquaculture operations. Our teams combine aquaculture science, farm operations, engineering, nutrition, animal health, technology, supply chain, quality, and commercial expertise to produce aquatic species responsibly and consistently.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Aquaculture Manager to lead the planning, operation, optimization, and continuous improvement of aquaculture production activities.

The ideal candidate will oversee production systems across marine, freshwater, pond, tank, cage, recirculating aquaculture, or other farming environments. The role will cover stock management, water quality, feeding, animal health, biosecurity, production planning, equipment, labor, sustainability, regulatory compliance, cost control, and performance optimization.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement aquaculture production strategies aligned with operational and commercial objectives.
• Manage day-to-day aquaculture operations across assigned farms, facilities, ponds, tanks, cages, hatcheries, or production systems.
• Develop production plans covering stocking, growth, feeding, harvesting, processing, and sales requirements.
• Establish production targets for biomass, survival, growth, feed efficiency, harvest volume, and product quality.
• Manage stocking densities and production capacity to optimize biological and financial performance.
• Monitor water quality parameters including temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, ammonia, nitrite, alkalinity, and other relevant indicators.
• Establish water-quality monitoring schedules, standards, thresholds, and corrective-action procedures.
• Coordinate water exchange, aeration, filtration, pumping, oxygenation, and circulation systems.
• Monitor aquatic animal health and identify signs of disease, stress, poor nutrition, or abnormal behavior.
• Develop and maintain aquaculture biosecurity programs to minimize disease introduction and transmission.
• Coordinate disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, quarantine, and health-monitoring programs with qualified specialists.
• Maintain accurate records of mortality, disease events, treatments, diagnostics, and health interventions.
• Develop feeding strategies based on species, growth stage, biomass, water conditions, and production objectives.
• Monitor feed consumption, feeding behavior, feed conversion, and feeding efficiency.
• Evaluate feed suppliers, formulations, feeding technologies, and automated feeding systems.
• Optimize feeding programs to reduce waste, improve growth, and control production costs.
• Monitor stock growth, biomass, survival, size distribution, and production performance.
• Conduct regular sampling, grading, counting, weighing, and biomass estimation.
• Coordinate harvesting activities to meet customer specifications, production schedules, and quality requirements.
• Manage equipment and infrastructure including pumps, aerators, feeders, filtration systems, cages, tanks, nets, sensors, and monitoring equipment.
• Establish preventive and corrective maintenance programs for aquaculture equipment and facilities.
• Monitor equipment reliability, downtime, energy consumption, and operational performance.
• Manage aquaculture staff, supervisors, technicians, seasonal workers, and contractors.
• Develop workforce plans, shift schedules, training programs, and operational procedures.
• Ensure employees are trained in animal handling, feeding, biosecurity, equipment operation, safety, and emergency response.
• Establish standard operating procedures for stocking, feeding, water management, health monitoring, harvesting, cleaning, and sanitation.
• Monitor production costs including feed, labor, energy, seed, medication, maintenance, equipment, and logistics.
• Develop budgets, forecasts, capital plans, and operating expenditure requirements.
• Analyze production economics, cost per kilogram, feed costs, labor productivity, and farm profitability.
• Evaluate opportunities to improve production efficiency, reduce mortality, and increase capacity.
• Support procurement of fingerlings, juveniles, feed, medicines, equipment, consumables, and technical services.
• Manage relationships with hatcheries, feed manufacturers, veterinary providers, equipment suppliers, laboratories, and service contractors.
• Monitor supplier quality, delivery performance, pricing, and technical support.
• Ensure aquaculture operations comply with applicable animal health, environmental, food safety, worker safety, and regulatory requirements.
• Maintain permits, licenses, production records, health records, environmental monitoring data, and compliance documentation.
• Monitor environmental impacts including water discharge, nutrient loading, waste, escapes, and ecosystem interactions.
• Develop responsible aquaculture practices covering resource efficiency, animal welfare, biodiversity, and environmental sustainability.
• Implement measures to reduce water consumption, energy use, feed waste, and environmental impact.
• Evaluate technologies such as automated feeding, sensors, remote monitoring, AI-based biomass estimation, predictive analytics, and recirculating systems.
• Analyze production data to identify trends, risks, bottlenecks, and improvement opportunities.
• Establish dashboards covering biological, operational, financial, quality, and environmental performance.
• Develop contingency plans for disease outbreaks, equipment failures, power outages, extreme weather, oxygen depletion, water-quality events, and other emergencies.
• Coordinate emergency response and recovery activities to protect stock and production assets.
• Conduct production reviews and root-cause analysis for mortality, growth, feed, water-quality, and operational issues.
• Support product quality programs from harvest through processing, cold storage, transportation, and customer delivery.
• Coordinate with sales and commercial teams to align production with market demand and customer requirements.
• Provide management with regular reports on production, stock health, costs, risks, sustainability, and improvement opportunities.

Key Performance Indicators

• Total production volume
• Biomass produced
• Survival rate
• Stocking density
• Growth rate
• Specific growth rate
• Average harvest weight
• Feed conversion ratio
• Feed efficiency
• Feed cost per kilogram
• Mortality rate
• Disease incidence
• Biosecurity compliance
• Water-quality compliance
• Dissolved oxygen performance
• Water-use efficiency
• Harvest yield
• Product quality
• Harvest loss
• Production cycle time
• Farm capacity utilization
• Labor productivity
• Energy consumption per kilogram
• Production cost per kilogram
• Operating margin
• Budget adherence
• Equipment availability
• Equipment downtime
• Preventive maintenance completion
• Supplier performance
• Environmental compliance
• Waste reduction
• Escape incidents
• Training completion
• Safety performance
• Customer quality performance
• Production forecast accuracy
• Continuous improvement savings

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in aquaculture production, fish farming, shrimp farming, marine farming, freshwater operations, hatchery management, aquatic animal health, or aquaculture technology, preferably within commercial aquaculture, food production, fisheries, or integrated farming environments.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Strong understanding of aquaculture production systems and biological processes.
• Experience managing commercial aquaculture operations.
• Knowledge of species-specific production, feeding, stocking, growth, and harvesting requirements.
• Strong understanding of water-quality management and aquatic animal health.
• Experience developing and implementing biosecurity programs.
• Knowledge of aquaculture nutrition, feed management, and feed-conversion optimization.
• Experience managing ponds, tanks, cages, recirculating systems, or other production environments.
• Strong production planning and operational-management capabilities.
• Experience managing aquaculture equipment, infrastructure, and maintenance programs.
• Strong understanding of environmental and sustainability requirements.
• Experience managing production budgets, operating costs, and capital investments.
• Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making skills.
• Familiarity with farm-management software, sensors, automated feeding systems, and production analytics.
• Experience managing employees, contractors, suppliers, and technical specialists.
• Strong problem-solving and emergency-response capabilities.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Strong attention to animal health, welfare, product quality, and operational safety.
• Ability to manage multiple production priorities and changing environmental conditions.
• Experience working with international and distributed teams.
• Willingness to travel periodically to farms, hatcheries, production facilities, and supplier locations.