Application Support Specialist (GC–MS)

APPLICATION SUPPORT SPECIALIST

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.

To apply for this position, please send your CV to [email protected]