Employment Opportunities

Thank you for your interest about employment opportunities at SepSolve.

Application Support Specialist

Reports to: UK Service Manager

Location: Peterborough, UK

Role description

The Application Support Specialist will provide development, post-sales support and training for customer analytical solutions via instruments sold through Markes International and Sepsolve Analytical. Although knowledge of how the instruments function will be required, a particular emphasis will be on providing application solutions to customer issues.

The position will be a technical role requiring good pre-existing knowledge of GC-MS & separation science. The position will offer a challenging and interesting role with plenty of variety and opportunities to learn. There will be some international travel required for the role to provide training, application support and escalated customer visits.

As part of the service team you will be responsible for supplying first line & initial triage support to our customers on the wider portfolio. The application specialist will then take charge of escalated application cases post-sales and work as part of a team to project manage the solution installation. This will require the individual to be up to date on all existing applications on offer as well as ensuring the extended service team is kept up to date with any advancements.

They will be responsible for working with the laboratory application team to develop effective post-sales customer support & training and manage continual improvement based on the analytical solution created in the lab. This will therefore require some lab time in order to help develop and make customer facing the application (effective solution). Therefore, the individual will be competent with lab practices and comfortable operating independently with both wet and analytical chemistry techniques.

Primary responsibilities

The role involves, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

Post-sales support

Provide support where there are issues identified related to Schauenburg software, hardware and application methodologies.
Where identified, own and document resolutions to post-sales issues to a successful outcome using the company CRM as a basis. This may require organisation of response from the rest of the post-sales support & applications team, especially where hardware issues are observed.
Provide technical support to the customer UK Service Manager to allocate field service engineers to customer sites and ensure correct part allocation and fault identification in advance of the visit and handover of the issue.
Provide customer training on the application developed and the use of associated hardware in each solution sold by the company.
Support the customer experience of the Schauenburg products with pro-active follow-up to investigate satisfaction of purchased solutions.
Development of support documentation to aid customer and engineer self-diagnosis of application problems.
Maintenance, repair and troubleshooting of all internal demonstration instrumentation as required.
Collation of field observed issues to allow these to be reported back to product and engineering teams as necessary.
Recognition of sales opportunities following customer communication for additional instrumentation, consumables, training, etc.
Be prepared to have at least 20% of time allocated to travel within the UK as well as possible, occasional international visits. With future opportunities to more into a full time FSE if desirable.

Application development

Work closely with applications development team to research, plan & develop new analytical methodologies for these opportunities to the agreed specification and timescale; identify the business advantages and benefits of the analytical solution; differentiate against competitive systems; perform chromatographic data analysis to provide the results in a clear format.
Assist in the development of new customer applications involving Sepsolve software products; demonstrate practical capabilities of new software features, often where they are bespoke for a particular client.
Assist in the development of new customer laboratory applications involving Sepsolve hardware products in conjunction with the software methodologies.
Consult with customers & distributors to assist & develop new applications using our equipment either in isolation or conjunction with partners.
Become highly competent in Markes & Sepsolve software for data handling & analysis to diagnose application issue & supply effective remedies.

This role description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by employee(s) in this position. Employees will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job‐related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments.

Knowledge / skills / experience / qualifications

The successful candidate will have a solid background in GC–MS and experience in analytical method development. They will have a “can-do” attitude; strong problem-solving skills and be able to remain calm under pressure and changing priorities. They will be a good communicator with strong organisational and multi-tasking skills and the ability to build good relationships across various functional teams within the business.

Essential criteria

A degree (or equivalent) in analytical chemistry or a similar discipline with hands-on GC–MS experience in a laboratory environment.
Experience in running, maintaining, and developing analytical methods using GC–MS and proficient with chromatography data systems.
Excellent written & verbal communication skills with experience of writing and presenting technical documents to colleagues or peers.

Desirable criteria

Experience of operating / maintaining a range of GC and sample introduction techniques would be beneficial e.g., GC–FID, GC×GC, GC–TOF MS, thermal desorption, SBSE, SPME, HS.
Experience presenting to the wider scientific community at conferences, seminars or webinars.
Experience of using statistical software packages for data analysis would be advantageous.
Commercial awareness and a keen interest in product marketing.

GC–MS Applications Engineer

Reports to: SepSolve Business Manager.

The focus of SepSolve Analytical is to identify, specify, develop, promote, sell and deliver analytical solutions and associated training and support based on a GC×GC and GC (GC×GC)–TOF MS product platform along with powerful data processing software and other associated products and 3rd party instrumentation. SepSolve will develop solutions involving sample preparation; sample introduction and both GC×GC and GC–MS analysis with the aim of offering a range of very competitive and advanced analytical solutions to greatly enhance the research, productivity and competitive edge of the customers that purchase them.

Job description

The applications engineer will be a key player at SepSolve and will have opportunities to grow in their role. The key aspects of the role are to both develop and demonstrate analytical methods to client specification but also to install and support the instrumentation and methods in the field. It is believed this will be both a challenging and interesting role for the successful candidate with plenty of variety and opportunities to learn.
On internal acceptance of a client project, the applications engineer is to research and understand client requirements, specify, design, plan and to develop the required methods to a consistent high quality and delivered to an agreed specification and timescale as agreed with the prospective clients.
Upon completion, ensure the write up of customer reports, application notes, standard operating procedures, presentations, and other technical documentation to allow promotion, delivery and method hand-over training of the completed application. This should be done to a set quality and within a timescale as agreed with the Business Manager and in line with the requirements of the client’s project proposal.
To assist the marketing manager by generating data and reports to assist in the promotion of the instrumentation and software for different application areas.
To run clients’ standards and samples in real world matrices to show a method's fitness for purpose, incorporating important analytical criteria such as - but not limited to - minimum detection limits, carry-over performance, calibration linearity, reproducibility and analyte recoveries. It will be critical to identify the business advantages and benefits of the applicated solution to enable clients to justify the investment for their laboratory, ideally showing a clear competitive edge over alternative or existing methodologies as currently adopted, and/or differentiating against alternative competitive solutions available in the market.
To organise the hosting of demonstrations of the developed method and instrumentation to visiting prospective clients to best ensure client satisfaction. Ensuring all customer areas are clean and tidy and that lunch and refreshments are appropriately organised for their visit.
To organise, prepare for and present software demonstrations and software training to prospective clients, other staff members and existing users of our software.
To attend key seminars, conferences, company and client meetings, to present and promote the developed application solutions. To help manage the set-up of client workshops to demonstrate and train prospective clients or users on the developed methods, the advantages and benefits.
Following sale of a packaged solution, attend the client site to carry out and finalise instrument installation and method set-up and to give training on, and fully hand over, the instrumentation and method to client satisfaction. Repeat a number of the performance tests to prove the method is working within specification and to ensure the client is left feeling competent in the operation of the method SOP. To ensure we attain sign-off from the client that the method is operating and that users are competently trained to the client's satisfaction.
To ensure prompt response to client requests in support of running the instrumentation and/or method by phone, by email, web-based meeting and by site visit. To follow up the handover event to ensure clients receive excellent help and assistance when they need it, allowing them to feel confident enough to purchase again or recommend our solutions to others.
To travel further throughout the UK, Europe and as needed globally to carry out such tasks.
To help manage the laboratory ensure supplies are re-ordered as required to avoid delays in project development, ensure the lab is kept clean, tidy and safe. To manage the laboratory within industry H&S guidelines.

Candidate specification

The successful candidate will have been a GC–MS user. Educated to degree-level in Analytical Chemistry, or a similar discipline, with 3 years or more GC–MS, sample introduction and sample preparation experience.
The candidate will be experienced in running and developing analytical methods using GC–MS and, ideally, experience of operating/maintaining at least some of the following techniques: GC, GC×GC, GC–MS, GC-TOF MS, SPE, LLE, solvent concentration, liquid injection, large volume injection, SBSE, SPME, HS, P&T, TD, and Dynamic HS amongst others.
Experience of operating both quantitative and qualitative analysis workflows with GCMS data processing software, experience on the use of GC×GC software an advantage. Knowledge of post analysis software for chemometrics and statistics would also be a distinct advantage.
Experience of miniaturizing and automating sample preparation would be a distinct advantage, even better if this was in conjunction with on-line coupling with GC–MS instrumentation.
Some HPLC and LC-MS knowledge and/or experience could be useful for future development of the business though not essential.
Project and management skills and experience could be highly beneficial.
Willingness to travel and stay away from home (globally at times) to undertake product installation/maintenance, method set-up and training at client sites is important for the developing role.
The candidate should be a self-starter with the ability to run projects, work on their own and to use their own initiative to develop and finalise projects within an agreed timescale.
They should also have a professional approach, be well presented and get on well with clients and as part of a growing team.