Principal Application Scientist

Come join our team at our technical center in Akron, OH.

Synthomer is growing and our innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in a global company make this as a perfect opportunity to use your experience to make an impact.

Reporting to the Technical Manager, the Principal Application Scientist position will have responsibility for applications research and development supporting existing and developing businesses within the Formulated Adhesive segment related to polymers, adhesives and tackifier resins.  

This involves direct customer engagement in the development of new opportunities and working closely with sales and account managers to create and deliver business strategies.  The selected individual for this position will also be responsible to translate market needs into product concepts and subsequently develop the concepts into commercial products. Candidates should be able to communicate effectively and function in an innovative, fast-paced, multidisciplinary team environment.  

The ideal candidate will have broad experience in hotmelt adhesive applications such as hygiene, and assembly markets. The knowledge of structure/property relationships and their impact to final application performance is desired.  

Job Responsibilities

• Lead application development with focus on hotmelt applications and associated markets such as hygiene, automotive, assembly, and other durable assembly markets. 

• Have an understanding of the functional attributes of a wide range of polymers, adhesives and tackifier resins materials. 

• Translate fundamental knowledge to the development of new applications and the identification of new market platforms 

• Understand customer and end-user requirements and testing procedures to determine how Synthomer product offerings can enhance adhesive applications and performance 

• Provide customers with product recommendations and support providing samples, technical and product details facilitating a customer’s evaluation of Synthomer products. 

• Provide customers with understanding of the Adhesive Solutions product portfolio via in depth training, conferences, tradeshows, and customer site visits 

• Work closely with the marketing and sales team on prospect mining and identification of new accounts including traveling with sales/marketing for joint customer visits requiring planning, preparation for calls and presentations to customers 

• Maintain contact with existing and prospective customers, either independently or together with the sales team, using all communication channels.  

• Manage innovation project opportunity pipeline through SalesForce (SFDC). 

• Collaborate with manufacturing and quality control department to ensure product performance and reliability as well as drive new product development 

• Stay current on industry developments and advancements in technology related to the product line 

• Prepare technical presentations, brochures and supporting literature to enable customer engagement 

• Represent the company at industry events and other forums 

Requirements

• Ideally PhD for this role in Chemistry, Polymer Science, Material Science or Engineering or other related field. Masters degree considered based on experience.

• Ideally 5 years experience in the adhesives or polymers industries.

• Demonstrated broad working knowledge in a wide range of polymer science skills including: structure-property relationships, polymer physics, characterization, mechanics of materials and polymer testing 

• Strong customer interface and communication skills in discovering customer needs and translate customer requirements into application specification 

• Exhibit a high level of initiative and self-motivation 

• Ability to translate customers unmet needs into differentiated new product or adoption of existing products in new applications 

• Skill in translating ideas and concepts into detailed technical work plans for execution by technician team  

• Excellent oral and written communication skills with customers and internal partners 

• Demonstrate strong leadership in project management, cross function team work and cross-region collaboration 

• Excellent MS Office software experience, CRM and planning tools (e.g. C4C, Salesforce, Arkieva). SAP experience preferred.
• Valid driver’s license and ability to travel up to 20% of time to domestic and international locations under short notice.

Preferred Skills:

• Knowledge of polyolefins used in hotmelt adhesives preferred  

• Good understanding of the adhesive markets including formulated adhesives, construction, and tape/label market  

• Ability to work in a team setting and with members from different technical background 

• Ability to work with and connect seemingly unrelated pieces of information 

• Working knowledge of Design of Experiment (DoE), practical experience utilizing statistical software platforms such as JMP, Minitab, Design Expert is preferred.