Senior Product Developer – Candy & Confectionery

About the role

Ahead is seeking a Senior Product Developer to lead the technical development of their candy and confectionery portfolio. You will own projects from initial brief through formulation, sensory validation, scale-up, and final launch, ensuring products meet high standards for taste, texture, and stability. This role requires a hands-on approach to balancing technical requirements with consumer expectations in a fast-growing, mission-driven environment.

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.
• Coordinate pilot and industrial trials with co-manufacturers and troubleshoot production issues.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Operations, Procurement, and Marketing to ensure project alignment.

Required skills

• Food product development
• R&D
• NPD
• Sugar reduction
• Sensory validation
• Scale-up
• Food law
• Technical documentation
• German
• English

Nice to have

• Gummies
• Chocolate
• Confectionery
• Shelf-life studies
• Stability testing
• Functional food

Qualifications

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

Benefits

• 28 vacation days
• Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve off
• €50 monthly allowance
• Snacks and drinks
• MacBook
• Pet-friendly office

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 manage a portfolio of over 170 SKUs and are experiencing ambitious growth across D2C, retail, and Amazon channels.