PopVax is an Indian full-stack biotech building first-in-class and best-in-class vaccines and cancer immunotherapies using machine learning-driven protein design and relentless empiricism. We design, develop, and manufacture our own RNA medicines end-to-end because we believe great pharmaceutical science can only flourish in tight feedback loops that iterate rapidly. PopVax’s experimental work and clinical dose production is based at the RNA Foundry, our integrated R&D and GMP-capable clinical dose production facility in Hyderabad.
PopVax's north star is our goal of developing novel vaccines and therapeutics over the next decade with the cumulative ability to save 1 million lives each year – the Million Lives Mission. To that end, we are developing first-in-class vaccines against Hepatitis C, Strep A, and adult pulmonary TB; broadly-protective best-in-class vaccines against COVID-19, influenza, malaria, and HPV; and precision immunotherapies against hard-to-treat solid tumours such as liver cancer and pancreatic cancer. Beyond existing diseases, we are leveraging our high-speed platform to build rapid-response biosecurity capabilities against engineered de novo pathogens.
Our mission is funded by Vitalik Buterin’s Balvi Fund, the Gates Foundation, the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Renaissance Philanthropy, and Good Ventures, with individual investments from Enveda founder Viswa Colluru and Tesla self-driving AI pioneer Dhaval Shroff. Our first program, an open-source broadly-protective COVID-19 vaccine, will begin a Phase I clinical trial in Australia in mid-2026. This is just the start – we intend to advance 6+ novel vaccine and immunotherapy programs into human clinical trials over the next three years, decisively demonstrating that world-class biotech R&D is possible in India.
No matter the job title, each person’s role at PopVax is ultimately about helping bring safe, effective new medicines that represent a step-change over the current standard-of-care to the people who need them, as quickly as possible. If you are looking for a place where the ambition is high, the learning curve is steep, and the work matters to billions, you’ll feel at home here.
If you’re excited by the idea of advancing scientific, clinical, and regulatory frontiers of vaccines and immunotherapies, spending each day developing medicines with the potential to save millions of lives, and building a generational global pharmaceutical company in India along the way – join us!
Job Description
Working at PopVax often feels like chaos — joyous, often productive chaos, but chaos nonetheless. We've learnt to embrace the chaos, but this speed and style of operation means that while we nearly always solve the most difficult scientific problems in front of us, and we ensure that the integrity of our data and the safety of our manufacturing process is uncompromisingly maintained, we sometimes slip up on the simplest of things — booking that taxi, re-ordering those boxes of tissue paper, fixing that TV screen. Our operational practices haven't scaled to keep up with our team of 100 people, and sometimes even the wingflap of the simplest operational fumble causes a butterfly effect that substantially delays an important set of experiments. We need someone who can build an oasis of operational order in the eye of PopVax's storm, without crushing the creative chaos that fuels us toward our mission to save 1 million lives each year with the vaccine and therapeutics we are developing.
That someone is our Vice President of Operations.
What You'll Actually Do
You'll own the operational backbone of this company — finance ops, people ops, facilities, procurement, vendor management, internal systems — all of it. If it keeps the lights on, the reagents stocked, the laptops working, and the paychecks arriving on time, it's yours.
But this isn't just about keeping the trains running. It's about building the tracks in the first place. We're a company that has grown faster than its infrastructure, and we need someone who can design systems and processes from scratch that will hold up when we're 200 people, and then 500, without becoming the kind of bureaucratic machinery that makes talented scientists want to quit.
You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with the CEO and department heads to translate big-picture company priorities into the unsexy but utterly essential processes, workflows, and administrative systems that let our scientific and technical teams do what they do best — without tripping over a broken printer or an expired vendor contract.
Specifically, you will:
Build the engine as it's running. Design and implement operational strategies, plans, and procedures that let us scale without losing our soul (or our efficiency). We don't have the luxury of pausing to build — you'll have to lay the road while driving on it.
Obsess over "better, faster, smarter." Audit and optimize internal workflows relentlessly. Whether it's automating a manual approval chain with AI, renegotiating a vendor contract, or figuring out why it takes three emails and a WhatsApp message to book a conference room — you'll find the friction and kill it.
Own the operational budget. You'll manage the P&L for operations, working closely with Finance to make sure we're hitting our margins while investing in the infrastructure that actually matters. You'll know the difference between spending money and wasting it.
Break down silos. R&D, GMP, QA — these teams need to talk to each other, and not just in the hallway. You'll ensure cross-functional coordination is a system, not an accident. When the scientist needs something from procurement and procurement needs something from finance, you'll make sure that chain doesn't have a weak link.
Measure what matters. Establish KPIs that give the executive team real-time visibility into the company's operational health — not vanity metrics, but the numbers that actually tell us whether the machine is working or about to break down.
Guard the culture. PopVax runs on a high-performance culture that values accountability as much as it values psychological safety. You'll help protect and strengthen that culture as we grow, making sure that operational discipline doesn't come at the cost of the environment that makes people want to work here.
Who You Are
You're the person who can discuss long-term strategy in a boardroom at 10 AM and then spend the afternoon unjamming the procurement process for lab consumables — and find both equally important. You're a systems thinker: you don't just fix a problem, you fix the process that allowed the problem to happen in the first place. You're data-driven, but you also have the instinct to know when a number is telling you something the spreadsheet isn't. You're fluent in modern operational tools — ERP systems, HRIS, procurement platforms, workflow automation — not because you love software, but because you know the right tool in the right place can save a hundred hours of human frustration.
Most importantly, you understand that operational excellence at a company like PopVax doesn't mean imposing rigid order on creative people. It means building the kind of invisible infrastructure that lets creative people be even more creative, because they're no longer wasting energy on things that should just work.
Qualifications
4+ years of experience in operations, business administration, or corporate management — ideally in an environment where things were moving fast and the playbook hadn't been written yet.
Experience managing operations in a startup or high-growth setting. If you've built systems from the ground up before, you know what we're looking for.
Strong understanding of finance operations, HR administration, vendor management, and compliance requirements.
Excellent organizational, negotiation, and cross-functional coordination skills. You can get five departments to agree on a process and actually follow it.
Preferred (but not required)
Experience in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or technology companies.
Experience in venture-backed or rapidly scaling organizations.
Familiarity with operational software platforms (ERP, HRIS, procurement, workflow tools).
Reporting Structure
You'll report directly to the CEO and work closely with every department head in the company. This is not a back-office role. You'll be at the centre of how PopVax operates, and the work you do will directly determine whether our scientists and engineers can focus on saving lives — or whether they're stuck waiting for someone to fix the Wi-Fi.