Scientific Project Manager / Future Scientific Leader
Black Swans Exist is recruiting on behalf of a highly specialized Danish technology company working at the intersection of adsorbent chemistry, biological materials, separation science, and industrial value creation.
This is not a conventional scientific project management role.
It is an opportunity for a scientifically strong, curious, and entrepreneurial profile to join a company at a defining stage of its journey — a company not simply optimizing existing processes, but helping establish a new category for how biological side streams, complex raw materials, and industrial bio-based challenges can be transformed into valuable solutions.
The company works with highly technical, customer-specific challenges across areas such as food technology, biotechnology, precision fermentation, dairy, plant-based materials, biological side streams, separation, purification, recovery, and adsorbent-based technologies.
At its core, the company helps customers answer a difficult scientific and industrial question:
How can complex biological materials be understood, separated, recovered, and turned into value?
The right candidate will work close to the science, close to the customer, and close to the future direction of the company. Over time, this person has the potential to become one of the key scientific knowledge carriers and future scientific leaders in the business.
The role
When a customer brings a new and complex problem, this person will help turn that challenge into a structured scientific opportunity.
That means understanding the customer’s technical challenge, identifying the relevant chemistry or separation principles, helping define which adsorbents or process approaches to test, supporting or leading experimental work, interpreting results, and helping move projects toward solutions that create real-world value.
Projects may involve very different biological materials and industrial streams. One project could relate to sunflower seeds, another to dairy, another to precision fermentation, and another to plant-based or biological side streams that currently have limited value.
The common denominator is scientific problem-solving with commercial and environmental relevance.
Key responsibilities
The successful candidate will take part in customer-driven scientific development projects from early problem definition to experimental planning, execution, analysis, and recommendation.
They will translate complex biological, chemical, or process-related challenges into clear hypotheses and testable scientific questions.
They will work with adsorbents, separation technologies, extraction, purification, filtration, recovery, or related approaches, depending on the customer challenge.
They will stay close to experimental work. This is not a purely desk-based role. The company needs someone who can combine hands-on scientific understanding with broader project ownership.
They will help build more scalable ways of working, including project documentation, experimental frameworks, internal methods, customer project processes, knowledge sharing, and better ways to capture and transfer specialist know-how.
They will also act as a technical sparring partner in customer conversations, helping understand customer needs, explain scientific possibilities, challenge assumptions, and build confidence in the company’s solutions.
The ideal candidate
Black Swans Exist is looking for a profile with several of the following:
A PhD or equivalent scientific background within chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, food science, process technology, separation science, materials science, or a related field.
Experience with adsorbents, separation, extraction, purification, filtration, recovery, or process development.
Experience from applied R&D, customer-driven projects, industrial science, or technical solution development.
Strong scientific judgment and problem-solving ability.
Experience designing experiments and interpreting data.
Curiosity and willingness to explore unfamiliar scientific problems.
Commercial awareness and interest in customer challenges.
The ability to communicate complex science clearly and practically.
Drive, ownership, and comfort in an entrepreneurial company where not everything is predefined.
Motivation and potential to grow into a broader scientific leadership role.
Personal fit
This role is likely to suit someone who is deeply curious, scientifically rigorous, and motivated by solving problems that do not come with standard answers.
Someone who enjoys being close to customers, but still wants to stay close to the science.
Someone who can build structure without creating bureaucracy.
Someone who is motivated by impact, not only publications, theory, or incremental improvements.
Someone who wants to join a company at a phase where their contribution can genuinely shape the future.
Why join?
Because this is a rare opportunity to combine deep science with real-world industrial impact.
The company is working on complex green bio-challenges and helping customers unlock value from difficult biological materials and side streams.
This is not just about making existing processes slightly better.
It is about helping build a new scientific and industrial category — one where advanced separation science, adsorbent chemistry, and biological value creation come together in a way that can matter for customers, industry, and the green transition.
This is a role for someone who does not just want a job.
It is for someone who wants to become important to a company.
Questions?
For more information, please contact:
Per Christensen
Co-Founder and Managing Director
Black Swans Exist
