Fermentation/Enzyme Application Development Specialist

Job Summary

At IFF Health & Biosciences, we're not only committed to delivering on customer needs, but to inventing the solutions that conserve resources. We are a health, bioscience, and sensorial experience company that is changing the world for the better. Today, we're building on our heritage of creating sensory experiences with the addition of world-changing scientific expertise and R&D. This potent combination of science and creativity, along with the passion to serve customers of all shapes and sizes means there's no limit to the impact we can have.

We are seeking an application development specialist for the Grain Processing Business, where we leverage cutting-edge enzyme and yeast technology to develop sustainable solutions for the emerging bio-based economy. Our enzyme and yeast products are critical biocatalysts in our customers' processes, enabling them to create renewable biofuel, feed, and food products. As a part of our Application Development team, this role will work across functions to develop and support products and processes.

Super short job summary: Support our North American fuel ethanol and carb processing (sugar) customers by development of yeast and enzyme products. Help troubleshoot & optimize customer processes. Lead and participate in cross-functional and technical projects.

Fermentation/ Enzyme Application Development Specialist

Applied Innovation Center in Cedar Rapids, IA, USA

Responsibilities:

• Hands-on laboratory work to support the ongoing product development projects and customer support requests
• Design, execute, interpret, and report on experiments at lab- and pilot-scales
• Support day-to-day laboratory operations
• Generate technical data and support for application development projects and customer support in fuel ethanol and carbohydrate processing
• Contribute to the technical development of enzyme and yeast products during the commercialization process: formulation and stability, performance evaluation, marketing material generation, scale-up, and post-launch support
• Prepare and present presentations on technical content to support marketing efforts
• Support Sales and Technical Service efforts through analysis of customer samples via biochemical and analytical chemistry techniques, lab-scale simulations of customer processes, method development, and remote and onsite technical support
• Interact with Sales & Technical Service teams as well as with North American Grain Processing customers to understand regional aspects of their processes and needs
• Support precommercial trials of enzyme and yeast products at customer sites
• Develop technical knowledge of products and their applications
• Technical leadership of projects

Required Qualifications:

Educational requirement

• MSc with a relevant academic background with 3+ years relevant work experience
• OR Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering, Bioprocess Engineering, Biochemistry, Microbiology, or a closely related field with 6+ years of relevant experience
• Experiences and skills required
• Lab research experience in an academic or industrial setting
• Understanding of enzyme kinetics and/or fermentation basics
• Experience performing biochemical and/or fermentation experiments at lab- and/or pilot-scales
• Experience with analytical techniques relevant for monitoring biochemical and fermentation processes such as HPLC, IC, GC, spectrophotometry, viscosity, biochemical assays, etc
• Ability to analyze complex data sets and use statistical inference
• Experience with Design of Experiments software to apply in lab focused experimental designs
• The successful candidate must be motivated, creative, have strong problem solving and critical thinking skills
• Demonstrates judgment and decision-making skills
• Demonstrates ability to perform advanced tasks in complex situations on a frequent basis
• Ability to work in a cross-functional team such as marketing, quality, sales and technical service as well as research and development
• Capability to work independently and collaboratively
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Self-starter with good organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail
• Customer focused
• Demonstrated aptitude in science-based innovation
• Willingness to travel up to 15%, including to customer commercial production facilities

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a related industry: industrial biotechnology, dry grind fuel ethanol, carbohydrate processing, brewing, etc
• Experience with enzymes and/or yeast relevant for starch and biomass processing and ethanol fermentation
• Experience with project management 
• Experience with process scale-up or scale-down
• Proficiency with statistical analysis software such as JMP

We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy. At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our potential. We value the diverse mosaic of the ethnicity, national origin, race, age, sex, or veteran status. We strive for an inclusive workplace that allows each of our colleagues to bring their authentic self to work regardless of their religion, gender identity & expression, sexual orientation, or disability.

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