Computational Polymer Chemist

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Job Summary IFF is a global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients, and bioscience solutions. Our innovations power everyday products through sustainable, cutting-edge science. At our Leiden site-home to 45 scientists from 15 nationalities-we have a proud history rooted in the early days of modern biotechnology. Today, we continue to lead the industry in sustainable bio solutions. Our R&D team designs microbial cell factories to create engineered enzymes used in food & beverages, home & personal care, animal nutrition, grain processing, biopolymers, and more. We drive innovation from idea to production, using generative AI, advanced biomolecular engineering, high throughput screening, and full-scale testing at IFF manufacturing plants. IFF Health & Biosciences is currently developing a new family of polysaccharides with broad industrial potential. This work spans biocatalysis, polymer process design, and application development, requiring strong cross functional collaboration. We are looking for an enthusiastic Computational Chemist to join our Designed Enzymatic Biomaterials (DEB) platform within the R&D team in Leiden. In this role, you will apply your expertise in computational chemistry, data science and polymer and material science to understand physical polymer properties and translate insights into innovative applications and product development. You will also collaborate closely with cross-functional partners, including polymer scientists, analytical chemists, biochemists and data engineers. Success in this role requires strong understanding of current computational approaches in polymer modelling and simulation, in addition to proven experience in applying principles of data science to understand polymer properties. The ideal candidate will also possess software and data engineering experience, a proactive mindset, and the ability to draw useful insights from scientific datasets to assist in defining scientific directions of the project team. This Leiden based role involves close interaction with international IFF teams. Occasional travel to R&D sites in Europe and North America may be required, along with participation in online meetings outside standard working hours. Where You'll Make a Difference We have decades of experience in polymer science and bioscience. We combine enzyme engineering with polymer chemistry to create novel solutions that can be manufactured at scale. When the application allow it, we want to become better at applying first-principles simulations to accelerate our research process. In other applications, when the distance between theory and full-scale tests is large, we want improve at statistical inference and machine learning to use data-driven discovery. We hope you can help us with both of these goals! Your responsibilities will include: Perform molecular simulations to predict physical properties of polysaccharides and their chemical derivatives, and how these properties can add value in customer applications Analyze process data to help understanding the chemistry behind assay results and design new experiments Help to organize data to make analysis efficient and automatable Identify new opportunities for polysaccharides in diverse industrial applications What Makes You the Right Fit PhD in Computational Chemistry, Material Science, Physical Chemistry or similar discipline with 1-3 years of industrial experience Experience running classical molecular dynamics simulations for molecular, polymeric, or soft matter systems using tools such as Schrödinger and LAMMPS. Proficiency with computational chemistry tools such as RDKit Strong knowledge of fundamental machine-, and deep-learning using e.g. scikit-learn and pytorch Proven record in polymer innovation: turning ideas into projects and projects into products How You Would Stand Out You have experience with water-soluble polymer formulation/characterization or biodegradable polymer design You have a passion for software engineering and documented experience with writing maintainable code (we mostly code in Python). You have documented experience with organizing data using domain software like Revvity Signals, Benchling or graph databases or plain RDBMS Why Choose Us? Join a dynamic, innovative, and multicultural team of highly skilled scientists Grow professionally and build your career in biotechnology, in an energetic, inclusive, and multicultural environment Attractive compensation and benefits, such as: Individual Choice Budget of 8% of the annual base salary, employee choice to be paid in monthly instalments or to exchange for additional time off up to 15 extra days per year 25 vacation days and 3 bridge days, of which 2 of them are chosen by the employer Annual Incentive Plan We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy. At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our p

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