Group Leader - Application Support

Who are we? Sphere Fluidics is an established Life Science company which provides instruments and specialist consumables for the global pharmaceutical and academic research community. Built upon our picodroplet microfluidic technology, we aim to ease the journey to discovery for single cell analysis and isolation.

 What’s our vision? To be the droplet microfluidic technology company for single cell analysis.

What’s our mission? To find, analyse and isolate the most valuable cells with ease and speed.

What’s our culture? We prioritise a culture that fosters care, collaboration, and self-expression. We believe in continuous learning and improvement and hold ourselves accountable for maintaining integrity at all times. It is our priority to build an inclusive environment that supports growth and empowers our employees to achieve their full potential and role model our employee values:

• We value and care for our people
• We innovate to create our future
• We collaborate and win together as a team

 

What you’ll do

Functional Area: Technical Support

Reports to: Director of Technical Support

 

The purpose of the Group Leader – Application Support is to provide leadership for all field application support activities as well as contributing technical expertise and insight to our customers and internal stakeholders on the applications of our technologies and products.

As well as leading our team of Field Application Scientists, you will work closely with multiple functional groups within the organization to support both pre-sale and post-sale activities from a technical perspective.

This role is part of the Technical Support team within R+D.  As part of this team, you will help deliver outstanding technical support to the highest possible scientific standards and ensure our technology and platforms deliver maximum scientific value for our customers.  The role requires extensive interaction with customers, including international travel to customer sites when required.

• Lead and develop our team of Field Application Scientists, setting clear goals, building a culture of technical excellence, and inspiring them to succeed .
• Develop robust processes and methods to streamline our application support activities and drive a culture of continuous improvement
• Generate high-quality application training materials
• Provide in-depth scientific support and insight to our commercial team during the sales process.
• Understand customer processes, workflows, and assays to suggest how picodroplet technology can most effectively be applied in their context.
• Plan, organize and execute customer demonstrations of Sphere Fluidics’ platforms showing how picodroplet technology can be applied to their specific biological processes and workflows.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of single-cell workflows, assays and analysis techniques through regular reviews of scientific literature and conference attendance.
• Provide application technical expertise to the company for ongoing R+D projects.
• Assist in defining requirements for next-generation platforms based on latest assay techniques and workflows.

 

What we’re looking for

Essential

• Master or Doctoral degree in cell and / or molecular biology or related fields.
• Experience in line management, leading, organizing, and inspiring teams to develop and deliver to a high standard.
• Knowledge of single-cell analysis techniques and workflows, particularly fluorescence-based assays and cell imaging.
• Experience of working in biopharma or industrial biotech carrying out cell-based and molecular assays in a commercial context.
• Experience of working directly with technically astute customers and representing the company externally, able to build trust quickly and drive technical discussions to good conclusions.
• Experience of planning complex biological experiments and drafting comprehensive protocols.
• Good data analysis and problem-solving skills, familiar with statistical techniques.
• Good communication skills, both written and verbal. Able to explain complex technical ideas in straightforward ways to non-experts, and discuss deep technical details with experts.
• Able to think creatively and propose novel ideas to solve problems.
• Good planning and organizational skills.

Desirable

• Familiar with microfluidics and associated instrumentation.
• Familiar with droplet techniques for biology R+D.
• Understanding of the biopharmaceutical discovery and development process.
• Familiar with working remotely on customer sites.

 

Personal Attributes

Essential

• Able to engage with others, listen, and communicate clearly.
• Able to lead conversations and drive decisions.
• Well organized with strong attention to detail.
• Able to work as part of a team and enjoy collaborating.
• Enjoy meeting new people and building relationships.
• Enjoy travelling and working off site.

Desirable

• Calm and methodical approach, not easily flustered by the unexpected.
• Able to multi-task and cope with uncertainty.

The Benefits

• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Employee Share Options (EMI Scheme)
• Company pension scheme with Aviva (employer contributes 8%)
• 4x Life Insurance & Critical Illness Cover
• Private Medical Insurance with Vitality
• Health Cash Plan
• Group Income Protection
• Employee Assistance Program
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Learning & Development opportunities for career growth
• Long Service Bonus – up to 5 extra days holiday
• Recruitment referral scheme (£1,000)
• Flexible working hours to support work-life balance

What’s Next? We will review your application and whilst we would love to get back to every applicant, it is not always possible. If you haven’t heard from us within 4 weeks, please note that your application has not been successful on this occasion.

Sphere Fluidics strives to be an equal opportunities employer. Our policy is to recruit a diverse workforce and follow the guidelines of the Equality Act.