Customer Development Chemist

As a Development Chemist - Building Materials Interior, you will be responsible for customer-facing development opportunities in UV coatings for the Building Materials market. As a chemist, you will work closely with sales managers in support of key customers while thoughtfully applying formulation expertise in a high-energy environment that encourages your growth! The development chemist plays a key role formula design, product preparation and application, and the testing of coatings against a wide range of specifications and requirements. The development chemist will build partnerships at all levels within the company and externally to resolve complex issues in effective ways.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage water-based, solvent-based, and UV 100% solids color product lines, including all tints and tint-base formulas.

• Act as a liaison to manufacturing by answering QC questions, working to maintain formula alignment, addressing problem formulas, and product quality concerns through experimental work.

• Support UV customers outside of the flooring market that utilize opaque UV coatings for the window and doors, furniture and cabinetry markets. With direction from the customer, formulate and test new ideas directed at improving coatings properties to add value through improved performance.

• Maintain new or alternative pigments and/or raw materials to enable supply security and mitigate production disruptions by keeping in contact with relevant suppliers. Design and execute the experiments for raw material testing.

• Work with other professionals from variety of functions to improve turnaround time of the stain color match process, from beginning to end own process improvement efforts.

• Collaborate with sales team for product attributes and build strong working relationships with new customers to increase potential business opportunities. New customer opportunities may involve color match and specification testing activities.

• Create communication documents and formulation guidelines to enable easy color matching between sites and ensure best practices are followed in manufacturing, lab and at the customer. Utilize knowledge of pigment and stain formulation chemistry to understand differences in performance and color of the stain product lines.

• Ensure a timely response to color match requests and color design work for wood customers.

• With feedback from technical service, address customer complaints/concerns through root cause analysis and/or formulation changes.

• Communicate and ensure recordkeeping through written/verbal summaries, reports, and presentations to both internal and external customers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a Chemistry, Polymer Science, Coatings Science, or Chemical Engineering or global equivalent in related discipline. Master's degree, PhD, or global equivalent a plus.

• 5 to 7 or more years of coatings formulation experience and proven laboratory experience.

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About us: 

PPG: WE PROTECT AND BEAUTIFY THE WORLD™ 

Through leadership in innovation, sustainability and color, PPG helps customers in industrial, transportation, consumer products, and construction markets and aftermarkets to enhance more surfaces in more ways than does any other company. To learn more, visit www.ppg.com and follow @PPG on X. 

The PPG Way 2030  

We are customer champions 

Proactive. Bold. Trustworthy. Everything we do starts with our customers. We listen, move fast and don’t stop until we solve their biggest challenges. When our customers win, we all grow. 

We act with purpose and speed 

Agile. Data-driven. Empowered. We take smart risks to stay ahead of the competition. We work proactively with agility, using quality data to develop solutions that create value.  

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Productive. Collaborative. Accountable. No matter our role, we identify problems, take ownership and always bring solutions. We are both proactive and responsive to drive continuous improvement and deliver results. We support our frontline, the faces of PPG to our customers.   

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Future-focused. Driven. Ambitious. We are passionate about growing our business and winning with our customers. We deliver results, embrace new technologies and leverage agility