Senior Product Developer – Candy & Confectionery

About the role

The Senior Product Developer will own the technical development of the candy and confectionery portfolio from initial brief through formulation, sensory validation, scale-up, and launch. This role involves balancing taste, texture, stability, cost, and compliance while ensuring products meet high performance standards. The developer will work cross-functionally to drive innovation and improve product development processes within a fast-growing snack company.

Responsibilities

• Own candy and confectionery projects from brief to launch, including technical targets and formulation optimization.
• Develop reduced-sugar and no-added-sugar products while maintaining taste and texture quality.
• Plan and coordinate sensory, shelf-life, and stability testing for new and existing products.
• Manage technical documentation, specifications, and ingredient compliance in collaboration with the Quality team.
• Oversee pilot and industrial trials, troubleshoot production issues, and coordinate with co-manufacturers.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Product, Operations, Procurement, and Marketing to ensure project success.

Required skills

• Product development
• Food science
• Sugar reduction
• Sensory validation
• Scale-up
• Technical documentation
• Food law compliance
• German
• English

Nice to have

• Gummies
• Chocolate
• Confectionery
• Shelf-life testing
• Stability testing
• D2C
• Retail

Qualifications

• Degree in food science, food technology, chemistry, nutrition science, ecotrophology, or a comparable field
• Equivalent practical experience

Benefits

• Monthly allowance
• 28 vacation days
• Pet-friendly office
• Snacks and drinks
• Team offsites
• Company merchandise

About the Company

Ahead is a 130-person team based in Hamburg on a mission to clean up the world's candy drawers by creating snacks with up to 90% less sugar. They operate their own lab and manage a portfolio of over 170 SKUs across D2C, retail, and Amazon channels.