Product Development Chemist

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Lead onboarding and early technical direction of commercial Development Requests (DRs).
• Evaluate technical feasibility, risk, effort, and manufacturability.
• Answer the critical business question: “What would it take?”
• Lead front-end formulation and early-stage product development for complex commercial opportunities.
• Perform and guide initial laboratory work to establish technical direction before delegating structured execution to downstream team members.
• Develop and refine formulations, constructions, and material solutions to meet customer performance and manufacturing requirements.
• Transition structured execution and scale-up activities to the Customer Solutions Chemist once technical direction and success criteria are defined.
• Determine whether work should proceed as structured product development, laboratory testing, process trial, or corrective action activity within the company’s formal workflow system.
• Authorize, filter, and frame Commercial Technical Services Requests (TSRs).
• Serve as the escalation point for complex commercial technical issues.
• Identify and prioritize optimization opportunities based on: O Engineering needs O Ops and QA feedback O Business impact.
• Determine and direct the appropriate workflow: O Product testing and data collection O Internal production trials O Corrective Actions and RCCMs.
• Partner with Engineering on trial design and interpretation.
• Confirm readiness for handoff to Operations and Quality.

Technical Services Governance

• Determine whether work should proceed as structured product development, laboratory testing, process trial, or corrective action activity within the company’s formal workflow system.
• Authorize, filter, and frame Commercial Technical Services Requests (TSRs).
• Serve as the escalation point for complex commercial technical issues.

5S & Lab Execution Discipline (Commercial Tech Services)

• Establish and drive 5S standards for wet and dry lab spaces used by the Dunmore team.
• Drive adherence to organization, cleanliness, labeling, and standard work expectations.
• Conduct periodic audits and corrective actions to maintain lab readiness.
• Reinforce execution discipline across all users of Tech Services lab spaces.

Cross-Functional & Customer Interface

• Partner with Business Development on customer-facing technical discussions.
• Provide technical input to guide commercial product focus and prioritization.
• Collaborate closely with Operations, Engineering, and Quality.

Organizational Protection

• Prevent commercial work from encroaching on Aerospace development.
• Resolve most commercial technical decisions independently.
• Escalate only issues involving: O Material revenue or margin risk O Strategic conflict O Capacity-breaking commitments.