Industry Technology Specialist (Coffee)- SEA

Interested in a career that matters?

Are you ready to use your coffee-processing expertise to help manufacturers improve their operations through innovative biosolutions?

You will join the Southeast Asia Food & Beverage Technical Service team as our regional technical specialist for coffee applications, initially focusing on soluble and instant coffee processing. Working in a collaborative, science-driven environment, you will partner with customers and colleagues across technical service, sales, marketing, R&D, regulatory affairs, and laboratories to develop practical solutions and create measurable value.

The role & your impact

As Industry Technology Specialist, you will combine hands-on technical expertise, project ownership, customer engagement, and commercial awareness. You will help customers address complex manufacturing challenges, implement biosolutions, and improve process and product performance.

Your work will influence customer success, technical project outcomes, commercialization, and the growth of our coffee business across Southeast Asia.

Your key responsibilities in this role

• Partner with coffee customers to identify process-improvement opportunities, troubleshoot manufacturing challenges, and implement biosolutions, particularly in soluble and instant coffee processing.
• Plan and execute laboratory, pilot, and industrial trials, translating process and product data into practical recommendations.
• Support projects from opportunity identification through implementation and commercialization.
• Identify opportunities to improve yield, resource efficiency, waste reduction, conversion costs, product consistency, and speed to commercialization.
• Evaluate emerging coffee applications, technologies, and ideas while contributing technical expertise to innovation and capability-building initiatives.
• Collaborate with customer production and R&D teams and with internal sales, marketing, R&D, regulatory, global experts, and Southeast Asia technical teams, while meeting applicable quality and safety requirements.

What you’ll need to be successful in this role

• A bachelor’s or master’s degree in chemical engineering, Food Engineering, Process Engineering, Food Science, or a related discipline.
• At least 10 years of relevant hands-on technical experience in coffee processing, coffee manufacturing, process engineering, production, plant operations, R&D, technical service, or industrial manufacturing.
• Practical knowledge of soluble or instant coffee manufacturing and relevant unit operations, such as roasting, grinding, extraction, concentration, freeze drying or spray drying, and clean-in-place systems.
• Strong capabilities in process optimization, technical troubleshooting, project management, and data-driven decision-making.
• The ability to diagnose technical challenges and turn process and product data into practical solutions.
• Strong customer focus and the ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated project ownership and the ability to collaborate effectively across functions and cultures.
• Strong written and spoken English.

Additional skills & interests we value

The following would be advantageous but are not mandatory:

• Experience in soluble or instant coffee manufacturing.
• Experience working directly with manufacturing sites and cross-functional production teams.
• Knowledge of other parts of the coffee value chain and an interest in emerging coffee applications.
• Additional Southeast Asian language capabilities.
• Curiosity, adaptability, and an interest in learning and applying new technologies.

What we offer you

This is an opportunity to build deep coffee-industry expertise while engaging directly with customers throughout Southeast Asia. You will contribute to a strategic regional growth area, work with experienced colleagues across multiple disciplines, and develop your capabilities through customer projects, trials, innovation activities, and exposure to regional and global expertise.

The position offers meaningful opportunities for learning, customer engagement, technical leadership, and regional impact.

Working conditions

The position may be based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, or Vietnam. It combines office-based collaboration, customer-site support, laboratory coordination, data analysis, and virtual engagement with regional and global teams.

Frequent travel throughout Southeast Asia is required, particularly to Vietnam and Indonesia. Working hours are flexible and will be influenced by project priorities, customer visits, and trial activities.

Our purpose guides the way

In Novonesis, we know that solutions rooted in biology can help solve humanity’s biggest challenges. Since we began more than a century ago, this has been our guide. It’s how we've gotten so far. And it’s how we'll impact the future. Now, more than ever, the world needs change. And with biosolutions, the possibilities for transformation are endless. If our purpose resonates with you, we encourage you to apply.

Opportunities for everyone

We are committed to an inclusive recruitment process and equal opportunity for all applicants. Therefore we ask you to apply without a cover letter or photo and instead include a few sentences in your CV explaining your motivation for applying.

We make all employment decisions based on business needs and welcome candidates with a wide range of backgrounds, including ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or veteran status.

Explore other openings

If this position isn’t the right fit, you may still find other opportunities with us. You’re welcome to explore open roles or create a job agent to stay connected with future opportunities at novonesis.com/Career

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Choose a career that matters - and never miss an opportunity to make a difference.

Our History

In 2024, Chr. Hansen and Novozymes joined forces to form Novonesis.

We are 10,000 people worldwide whose expertise spans more than 30 different industries. All around the world our biosolutions already create value for thousands of customers and benefit the planet. Our biosolutions enable feeding and fueling the world more sustainably, from healthy and sustainable nutrition to biofuel. Our biosolutions also reduce the use of fossil-based resources, chemicals, energy and water. And this is just the beginning.