Will taking a post-doc position harm my future chances in industry? I am 29 years old and am about to finish my PhD thesis in the field of remote sensing (i.e. somewhere between computer sciences and geosciences in a broad sense or applied signal and image processing in a more narrow sense) at a university in central Europe. 

Due to the fact that there are only few tenure positions available in science and I would rather stay in my (economically strong) home region, I want to find a position in industry in the long term. However, I have received an interesting offer for a post-doc / scientist position in a new-to-be-founded research group with great funding and cutting edge research in the applied signal processing field. 

My question now is: Will some additional years in academia harm my chances concerning a job in industry? 

Some additional points to consider:


in the post-doc position, I would be the deputy of the group leader (who is soon to receive a full professor/tenure position)
I'd be responsible for staff management and some budget issues (about 20% of time)
I'd have the chance to travel to international conferences
the application the signal processing research is carried out for is not directly industry-relevant
I have received an invitation to an interview for an R&amp;D job at an automotive company, but it is scheduled only in 3 weeks, while I have to decide for the post-doc offer sooner rather than later
I can not talk directly about remote sensing, but in computer science, a postdoc does not harm your chances to go into industry directly ...

... but unfortunately it will also likely not help you much when applying for an industry job. That is, I would expect that your CV for an industrial job is about as strong after the postdoc than before. Given that there are opportunity costs for working in a postdoc for (presumably) multiple years (lower salary, lost opportunity to build up experience that is more directly helpful in industry jobs, etc.), you will certainly pay for doing this postdoc if you look at the grander picture (lifetime earnings, etc.).


  I would be the deputy of the group leader (who is soon to receive a full professor / tenure position) - I'd be responsible for staff management and some budget issues (about 20% of time)


This sounds like you will have actual management experience after your postdoc. If you find the right company, these are certainly points that will help your case afterwards. However, some of my colleagues have made the experience that there are a surprisingly large number of companies in central europe that summarily dismiss everything you do at a university as "not really management" (mostly due to a lack of understanding that university labs also have to deal with budgets, hiring, people issues, etc.). Not sure how representative these word-of-mouth tales are, but it is something to keep in mind.