Technical Services Manager
The person who sits at the intersection of technical rigour, client trust, and commercial urgency.Who We Are
Alkemista is a premium liquid development company. We create award-winning drinks for ambitious founder-led brands and major global drinks companies - from category-defining spirits and RTDs to the next generation of alcohol-free. Our clients include Moth, Pathfinder, Goodrays, Served, Aplos and Malfy gin, and we've helped create over £850M in founder exit value.
We work differently to most. We start with emotion - how a drink should make someone feel - then work backwards to the formula. That means our quality standard isn't just about passing analytical thresholds. It's about protecting something people genuinely care about.
The team is small, highly skilled, fast-moving, and completely obsessed with doing things properly. If you want bureaucracy and sign-off chains, this isn't the place. If you want to do some of the most interesting technical work in the drinks industry, it is.The Role
Most quality roles are about one thing: holding the line. This one is about three: holding the line, managing client relationships, and running technical projects from brief to conclusion.
Think of it like being a senior consultant who happens to be technically excellent. You're not in the lab all day. You're on calls with brand founders explaining why a batch is on hold, running root cause investigations at co-packer sites, writing process authority letters, and building the systems that mean we don't have the same problem twice.
You'll own the day-to-day technical relationships with our retained service clients - brands who trust us to protect the integrity of their liquid from bench to shelf, batch after batch. You'll also lead our quality and compliance agenda internally, and project-manage technical work that falls outside the scope of standard development.
It's varied, occasionally pressurised, and genuinely important. The brands we work on matter to the people who built them. Your job is to make sure we never let them down.What You'll DoRetained Client Management
This is the core of the role. We have a growing portfolio of retained brands - each with multiple SKUs in production across various co-manufacturers in the UK and US. You are their first call when something goes wrong, and their regular point of contact when everything is going right.
• Own day-to-day technical relationships with retained clients - managing approvals, shelf life programmes, sensory assessments and ongoing productions.
• Lead the positive release process: ensuring analytical, sensory and microbiological parameters meet specification before stock goes to market.
• When issues arise, manage them. Communicate clearly to the client, assess the risk, lead the investigation, and see it through to resolution.
• Validate new materials for use in existing recipes, confirming no sensory, stability or specification impact.
• Manage shelf life validation programmes from first production - document results, communicate findings, and maintain records for shelf life extensions.
• Support clients through external audits - be present at production sites, provide documentation, represent Alkemista's standards.
• Write retained services proposals for existing and new clients, analysing resource requirements to ensure quotes are accurate and commercially sound.
• Keep all technical documentation current and properly filed - specifications, version control, traceability records.
Technical Project Management
Retained clients regularly come to us with challenges that go beyond standard quality oversight - new packaging formats, liquid re-engineering, can compatibility trials, co-packer transitions. You scope it, cost it, plan it, and deliver it.
• Scope new technical projects - packaging compatibility trials, liquid re-engineering, scale-up validation - building accurate quotes and realistic timelines.
• Liaise with clients, suppliers, testing labs and co-manufacturers to resource projects effectively.
• Take a hands-on approach: attend trials, gather data, and lead the work rather than just coordinate it.
• Present findings and recommendations to clients in clear, commercially useful language.
• Manage co-packer transitions for retained clients - ensure quality is upheld when moving between production sites.
Troubleshooting and Root Cause Investigation
When something goes wrong - a batch on hold, a leaking can complaint, a sensory deviation across multiple SKUs - you don't wait for someone to tell you what to do. You already have a hypothesis.
• Be the first point of contact for business-critical technical issues - respond quickly, communicate clearly, and manage the situation.
• Design and lead root cause investigations using structured analytical frameworks (5-Why methodology).
• Work with Alkemista colleagues, external testing labs and co-manufacturers to gather the right data.
• Analyse results, draw conclusions, and make recommendations - then write them up in technical reports that work for both client and co-packer audiences.
• Implement preventive measures and lead continuous improvement so the same issue doesn't happen twice.
• Lead the risk management process for key business decisions affecting liquid quality or client relationships.
Co-packer and Supplier Network
• Build and maintain a strong, diverse co-packer and supplier network that gives us access to the capabilities our clients need.
• Audit and onboard new production partners and suppliers following the Alkemista process.
• Ensure co-packer blend methods align with our Method of Manufacture documents - catching misalignments before they become batch failures.
• Maintain a co-packer capability matrix so developers can match new liquids to the right site from the outset.
• Develop and maintain an interchangeable ingredient matrix - enabling rapid response when supply issues affect a client's production.
Compliance and Regulatory
• Manage our compliance and regulatory partners - knowing where the boundaries are and how far we can push them for clients.
• Maintain current knowledge of UK, EU and US regulatory requirements relevant to our categories.
• Ensure all proposed liquids comply with labelling, category and legal requirements before they reach a client brief.
• Maintain approved supplier documentation - certificates, accreditations, policies - so everything is audit-ready.
• Proactively flag upcoming regulatory changes that could affect retained clients' products.
Microbiology
• Manage relationships with our external micro lab and incoming results.
• Own the positive release process for micro sign-off, alongside sensory and analytical approvals.
• Support liquid developers with micro validation planning during development - ensuring products are fully validated before launch.
• Evaluate in-house micro testing capability as the business scales.
Internal Quality and Process
• Maintain and improve internal quality documents, SOPs and processes - ensuring full traceability and version control.
• Implement continuous improvement across the team, raising standards without adding unnecessary overhead.
• Train team members on new processes and ensure consistent adoption across the business.
Who You Are
We've tried to fill this role with traditional quality professionals before. It doesn't work. The person who succeeds here isn't primarily a QA manager - they're a technically excellent operator who can run client relationships, manage projects from inception to delivery, and hold their own in a room full of brand founders and co-packer site managers on the same day.
Specifically, you'll need:
• A technical foundation in food science, chemistry or a related discipline - you understand what you're looking at when you read an analytical result or walk a production line.
• At least two years of relevant quality experience in food or drink, with confidence using analytical equipment (ideally including instruments like Anton Paar density and ABV analysis).
• Strong project management instincts - you can scope a piece of work, cost it, plan it, and deliver it without needing someone to chase you.
• Excellent client communication skills - you can translate technical complexity into clear, commercially relevant language for a brand founder who didn't study food science.
• The ability to hold multiple priorities without losing the thread. We run dozens of retained client programmes simultaneously. You'll need to know where everything is at any given moment.
• A problem-solving mindset, not an escalation mindset. When something goes wrong at 7pm the night before a production run, you're already thinking through the options.
• Willingness to travel - first productions and co-packer visits are part of the job, not an exception to it.
• Proficiency in Word and Excel - you'll write technical reports and work with data regularly.
If you're looking for a role where you process approvals, file documentation, and manage a quality system - this will frustrate you within three months. If you're looking for a role where your technical credibility earns you genuine influence with the brands you work with, and where no two weeks look the same, this will be one of the best jobs you've had.