The Senior Applications Technologist – Beverages is acting as the technical interface between our Applications & Innovation Team and our Go-to-Market Teams (Category Marketing, Sales & Technical Service) and is responsible for driving and executing the medium-term solution development pipeline of projects to enable future business growth in their focus application categories. The main focus will lie on the Beverage categories, but depending on business priorities other categories may be supported as well.
The individual will be responsible for running their own experiments and translating ingredient functionalities into new customer winning solutions and value propositions, as well as supporting competitor benchmarking, selectively explore new market opportunity spaces and drive the development of relevant new capabilities.
Core Responsibilities:
Technical Project Owner (PTO) in relevant projects & capability builds: Technical point person for driving and executing the medium-term application solution development. Leverage supporting capabilities like Sensory, Culinology and Texture measurement to develop supporting evidence to underpin and strengthen customer value propositions.
Knowledge transfer – Provide the necessary knowledge transfer and training to the wider Go-To-Market Team and develop and maintain the internal as well as external Ecosystem to accelerate growth in EMEA. Represent the region in relevant global technical category communities and identify opportunities for cross-regional solution transfers. Train the go-to-market team in application specific areas as needed to reach maximum self-sufficiency in selling our customer solutions. Capture the key learnings/insights in designated knowledge management tools. Ensure all intellectual knowledge and know-how is adequately protected and identifies opportunities to file potential new IP.
Role with Hands-On-Activities: Spend significant hands-on time (30- 50%) in our iLTC labs and pilot plant (or externally) to run own trials and measurements in support of projects.
Co-owns Product Launches & Competitor Benchmarking: Together with the Ingredient Development Managers, Category Marketing Leads and global Application team, create and deliver new Customer Solution Technical Launch Packs, including food concepts and hands-on training, and leverage early customer feedback (post-launch support). Set the right specifications for products to ensure reliable performance in meeting customer needs with focus on beverage, but potentially also in other categories. Drive relevant competitor benchmarking to validate pro’s/con’s, versus our own solution portfolio. Support relevant market campaigns, customer webinars and external events. Participate and represent Ingredion as subject matter expert at appropriate external events and at key strategic customers.
Provides Training: Train the G2M team on new products and their use in application specific areas as needed to reach maximum self-sufficiency in selling our solutions. Leverage learnings to develop and validate new customer value propositions or identify further headroom for growth.
New Opportunity Exploration and Networking: Build and own the expertise and capabilities in relevant focus applications and customer processes. Explore new opportunity spaces or support relevant capability builds. Support the team with scouting for new technologies and supports with developing the right external network to enable and accelerate growth.
Category Technical Expertise: Develop new sub-category technical application expertise for existing and new product portfolios. Lead solution development work for partner and strategic accounts as needed including critical capabilities such as sensory/consumer insights and measurement science. Contribute with their technical expertise to the category roadmap led by the Marketing Category Manager.
System Opportunities: Work closely with the Systems Team to identify new potential building blocks combining our single ingredient portfolios to develop customer solutions.
Care First / Core Values / Safety: Embrace and contribute to our company core values, show respect for each other, and ensure themselves and others are working safely.
Qualified candidates will have:
Degree in Food Science (BSc or MSc) or other science related discipline and minimum of 3-5 years of experience in the food (ingredient) industry
Proven hands-on experience, preferably across beverage applications. Excellent formulator with strong desire to develop more structure-function understanding and understand ingredient interactions.
Good presentation and communication skills to enable efficient knowledge transfer.
Good language skills – especially English fluency, both written and spoken
Required behaviors and skills:
Excellent Team Player with an opportunistic and agile mindset.
Self-motivated and results focused. Be creative and persistent.
Curious to learn, develop new skills and keen to structure data to develop new insights.
Ability to efficiently plan their work and navigate multiple workstreams and projects in parallel.
Manage efficient knowledge transfer across multiple interfaces and embrace Stakeholder management.
Other
Willing to sometimes travel to represent Ingredion at external events and/or selectively join target customers visits across EMEA as/if needed.
Relocation Available:
Yes, Within Country