About SmartWorm
SmartWorm is a smartphone based decision support software that enables livestock farmers to improve how they control internal parasites. Parasitic worms cost livestock farmers an estimated ~€10 billion annually in lost production and treatment costs. That cost is rising as resistance continues to develop to the drugs used to control parasites. In many regions, blanket treatment strategies are now actively accelerating the problem they were designed to solve.
SmartWorm addresses this by enabling targeted selective treatment (TST) at the individual animal level. Our algorithm driven solution helps farmers identify and treat only the animals that actually need intervention - typically reducing drug use by up to 60%, slowing resistance development, and improving overall performance without compromising welfare or output.
Beyond treatment decisions, SmartWorm is also being used to support selective breeding - identifying animals that consistently demonstrate lower treatment requirements and better resilience and resistance to parasites. This creates a long-term pathway to reducing parasite pressure at flock level, rather than relying indefinitely on chemical control.
SmartWorm brings together:
* On-farm data, including liveweight and growth rates, visual condition scoring, pasture and weather data, and parasitology inputs
* Proven algorithms, grounded in five years of veterinary and parasitology research in Ireland and the UK, alongside peer-reviewed work from New Zealand
* Practical farmer workflows designed for real handling systems and real decision-making, not laboratory conditions
Where We Are Now
SmartWorm already has active users across Ireland, the UK, and New Zealand. The product is underpinned by deep domain expertise built through five years of extensive on-farm trials across multiple regions, carried out in collaboration with University College Dublin, Queen's University Belfast, and Beef + Lamb New Zealand.
The core logic works. Farmers are using it. The problem is real, validated, and growing. What we need now is a technical co-founder-level leader to take this from a strong, proven product to a robust, scalable platform - capable of supporting more users, more animals, more data, and more complex decision-making and adding capability and features without losing reliability.
Your Job
You will be the Chief Software Engineer, joining at founder level alongside the CEO. Your responsibility is simple to state and hard to execute: turn a powerful idea and deep domain logic into a robust, scalable software product that farmers trust. This is not a role for someone who wants defined specs, or a large existing team. You will define the system, write core code, make architectural calls, and decide what matters.
What You'll Do
The boss of the technology
* Take responsibility of SmartWorm's software architecture end-to-end
* Make decisions on stack, infrastructure, data models, and scalability
* Be the final technical authority
* Write and ship production code
* Set engineering standards and patterns
* Work directly with the CEO on product direction and trade-offs
* Challenge assumptions and improve ideas - this is a thinking role
* Turn messy real-world farming problems into clean technical solutions
* Design systems that can scale across farms, animals, and regions
* Decide what to develop now and what can wait
Over time, you will help hire and lead additional engineers — but this role starts hands-on.
This Role Is For You If:
* You want real ownership in a start-up, not a senior job title
* You are comfortable making big decisions with incomplete information
* You care about whether software actually works for users, not just that it's elegant
* You want to build something meaningful in food, agriculture, and sustainability
This Role Is NOT For You If
* You want a large existing engineering team
* You need heavy process before you can move
* You prefer maintaining mature systems to building new ones
* You are uncomfortable with ambiguity or responsibility
What We're Looking For
* Strong experience building awesome software solutions
* Ability to design and reason about architecture and features
* Comfort working across backend, frontend, and data layers
* High personal standards for code quality and reliability
* Be a founding member of a start-up with global potential and an exciting product positioning the company as the leader in precision animal health agtech
Experience in ag-tech, climate-tech, data-driven products, or decision-support systems is a bonus, not a requirement.
What We Offer
* A founding role
* Founder role and responsibility
* Good salary and meaningful equity
* Real-world impact in farming
* The chance to define a product that is forever changing how parasites are managed globally by livestock farmers
Location & Working Style
* Ireland-based preferred
* Hybrid or remote
* Regular collaboration with the team in Abbeyfeale, Co. Limerick
* In-person sessions around key product milestones
One final, important note
If you're looking for a "job", this isn't it. If you want to build a company and a product that matters, it might be.
Job Type: Full-time
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick