Process & Application Development Engineer - Grain Processing at International Flavors and Fragrances in CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa

Job Description:

Job Description

IFF's Health & Biosciences division (formerly part of DuPont) has an exciting and challenging opportunity for a process and application development engineer in IFF's Grain Processing Business. The role is on the North America Application Development team located in Cedar Rapids, IA. Working closely with customer-facing functions and R&D, the Application Development team leverages a fundamental understanding of our customers' processes to develop and support products for the fuel ethanol, carbohydrate processing, and related industries. Our yeast and enzyme products are critical biocatalysts in our customer processes, enabling them to create fuel, feed, and food.

The successful applicant will be responsible for providing technical leadership on solid/liquid separations, process simulation, and application of diverse enzymes in bioprocesses. They will work closely with Marketing, Sales, Tech Service, Supply, and R&D teams to develop and support new products and solutions to help our customers meet their process performance and financial goals. The ideal candidate has extensive relevant industrial experience in a bioprocess industry and brings strong technical knowledge, interpersonal effectiveness, and experience solving complex multi-disciplinary problems.

Key Responsibilities:

* Leverage knowledge of science and engineering fundamentals, our customers' processes, IFF products, and competitive landscape to develop solutions for customers

* Provide technical leadership on solid/liquid separation, process simulation, and the application of diverse enzymes in bioprocesses

* This is a hybrid role and will involve hands-on work at multiple scales (bench, pilot, and commercial-scale) as well as process modeling using Aspen Plus and similar tools

* Contribute to the technical development of enzyme and yeast products during the commercialization process: formulation and stability, application performance evaluation, marketing material generation, scale-up, and post-launch support

* Support enzyme and yeast product trialing and optimization efforts by running bench- and pilot-scale experiments and assaying customer samples using a variety of biochemical and analytical techniques

* Lead and support precommercial trials of enzyme and yeast products at customer sites

* Use process modeling software to support process optimization and design

* Contribute to the development and maintenance of bioprocess models

* Provide mentorship for junior team members and partner across regions and functions to advance solutions

* Define and execute original technical work which expands knowledge in our industry, ideally resulting in Intellectual Property

* Investigate, create, and develop new methods and technologies for project advancement

* Consistently apply sound statistical analyses and the Scientific Method in delivering solutions, formulating hypotheses and developing experimental plans

* Communicate and appropriately document work in the form of internal reports/presentations and external publications/presentations (as appropriate).

* Understand and follow appropriate EH&S standards, policies, and procedures. Lead by example in the area of safety behaviors by promoting safe work habits.

Job Requirements

Required Qualifications:

* Bachelor's or Master's degree in Chemical Engineering, Bioprocess Engineering, or a closely related field with 5+ years of relevant industry experience

* Deep, quantitative understanding of solid/liquid separations, industrial biotechnology processes, and the application of enzymes in an industrial setting

* Experience troubleshooting and optimizing solid/liquid separation unit operations (centrifuges, size-exclusion screens/filters, etc)

* Experience performing bench-scale experiments to evaluate the use of enzymes in bioprocesses

* Experience with analytical techniques relevant for monitoring bioprocesses (HPLC, biochemical assays, compositional analyses, etc)

* Experience simulating (bio)processes with modeling software such as Aspen Plus, SuperPro, or similar

* Demonstrated success applying insights gained from process modeling

* Track record of technical project contribution and delivery

* Strong interpersonal, partnership and leadership skills with the ability to work independently, manage time effectively, and drive projects to completion

* Experience mentoring junior researchers and engineers

* Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Ability to deliver presentations that distill complex ideas and proactively communicate results and progress to technical teams, management, and customer-facing teams.

* Willingness to travel up to 15%, including to customer commercial production facilities

Preferred Qualifications

* Experience successfully scaling-up solid/liquid separation processes from bench- to full-scale

* Experience with enzymes and/or yeast relevant for corn and starch processing and ethanol fermentation (amylases, proteases, fiber-hydrolyzing enzymes, lipases, etc)

* Experience in the dry grind fuel ethanol, carbohydrate processing, or related industries

* Experience optimizing and troubleshooting distillers corn oil centrifuges

* Experience developing mechanistic models of bioprocesses

* Passion for developing and applying customer insights and fundamental understanding of yeast performance in industrial applications

* Proficiency with statistical analysis software such as JMP, Spotfire, Minitab

Nearest Major Market: Cedar Rapids