Halter Looking for Farm Research & Development Internship 2023/2024 at Waikato, New Zealand Full Time

The future of food production hinges on an important question: How do we feed the world’s growing population without compromising our natural resources? Farmers feed our population and hold the keys to vital climate solutions. At Halter, we’re on a mission to enable farmers to run the most productive and sustainable farms. Farmers are using Halter to break free from the time-intensive constraints of conventional farming. They’re growing more grass, increasing milk production and improving the health and wellbeing of their cows.

We bridge deep tech into farming. Halter enables farmers to remotely shift, virtually fence and proactively monitor their cows’ health and behaviour. Can you imagine watching 500 dairy cows turn in unison and walk calmly towards the milking shed? No quad bikes, no dogs, no fences. Just a mob of cows walking at their own pace. People say it looks like magic. Our customers are revolutionizing farming with Halter. It’s changing lives and transforming an industry.

People join Halter because they want to do meaningful work. By joining us you’ll be solving challenging problems within a talented team and a culture built for high performance. Our team out-think, out-work and out-care. We’re committed to delivering real change in the world – this isn’t easy, and in truth, we love that it’s hard. We’re backed to deliver on a mission that matters by Tier 1 investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, DCVC, Blackbird, Promus Ventures, Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck and Icehouse ventures.

To find out more, visit our careers website, LinkedIn & Instagram.

About The Role

Want to be apart of a team doing something that has never been done before? Want to work with cutting edge technology? We are looking for a farm R&D intern! This is not a traditional R&D role, as we are pioneering the future of farming. This role is about concise test plans and hands on fieldwork!

You will join a multidisciplinary research and development team composed of engineers, farmers, and everything in between. Two days in this team never look the same, you might find yourself out in the paddock working with the cows, or sitting in our on farm base, figuring out the next big problem. Our focus is on developing new features that our customers use in the day-to-day running of their farm using Halter, providing our expertise in getting the best out of our product and making sure every cow wearing a Halter collar understands our system.

We believe team culture is vital for success as a team and as a company, we work hard to maintain a fun and casual atmosphere in which you can thrive and develop. From your first day we value your input in shaping what our product looks like and how our farmers use it. You will be vital to the success of Halter. You will be heavily involved in all on farm testing, from experimental design through to reading of data. You will also play a major role in changing the lives of farmers by helping ensure their cows are trained to the highest level, and making sure that both farmer and cow are getting the most out of our product.

There are two internship opportunities at Halter.

One internship will be available ASAP. It will be full-time 40 hours a week and will run for at least 6 months with an opportunity to jump on board permanently.

The second internship will run from around the 15th of November 2023 through to the 25th of February 2024. It will be full-time 40 hours a week over this time period. If you can start earlier or later, we can be flexible around that, these are just the general time periods for our internships.

What your day could look like

• Designing and carrying out on-farm research projects that enable continuous innovation and improvement of our product
• Hands on experimental work, building a deep understanding of our product and the way animals interact with it and using your knowledge of cow behaviour to merge these into revolutionary ideas
• Using your observations, data and learnings from your research to provide input into feature designs
• Validating new and improved features on customer farms
• Helping further develop the way we train cows to understand our collar
• Working cross-functionally with teams across the company: From Engineering to provide input into new and existing product features; to Customer Success to ensure our products are meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations
• A wide array of farm jobs. Helping with day to day farm maintenance and activities!

Who are we looking for?

• Ideally, you are enrolled in your final year or have a recent completion of an agriculture, animal behaviour, livestock biometrics degree or similar degree.
• You have either farming experience/background or cow knowledge
• You are tech-savvy and show an eagerness to learn and understand the tech-side of our product
• You are comfortable with ambiguity and thrives in a fast-paced environment
• You enjoy working hard and want to be a part of a team that does the same
• You love working in a team, sharing ideas and giving plus receiving feedback
• Has the eagerness to learn and to do things you’ve never done before

Why our team loves working at Halter

• A genuine and shared connection to our mission to make a difference in the world
• The excitement, risk, and reward of a high-growth technology scale-up
• The pride of joining an iconic New Zealand technology company growing successfully on the global stage
• The opportunity to work with and grow alongside a dynamic, and highly talented team with diverse backgrounds
• The opportunity to supercharge your career in a supportive and caring environment
• Our ideas are truly valued, we are able to move fast, and our impact is real
• We offer a competitive remuneration package

Halter is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace — a place where we can each be ourselves and do the best work of our lives. Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the requirements, women and under-represented groups of candidates tend to only apply when they meet every requirement. If you think you have what it takes but don’t necessarily tick every requirement on this job description, please still get in touch and apply to Halter. We’d love to chat to see if you’ll be an epic fit!

Our Office First Approach

We do have flexible working hours and you can work from home when you need to but we encourage our team to be in the office as much as you can.

We have an office-first approach because we would like to keep the opportunity for teams to have spontaneous interactions which in turn has allowed our team at Halter to foster strong relationships. Stronger relationships make it easier to disagree, give feedback, do meaningful work and as a result be higher performing as a team.

Join our team

If this opportunity sounds like you, please apply below by sending through your cover letter explaining why you’re excited about this role and working at Halter, along with your CV, and we’ll be in touch!

Please also feel free to check out the careers and culture page for more information on working at Halter and don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn & Instagram.