Technical Specialist
DS Smith Plc
Get a reply from this employer — a resume and cover letter tailored to exactly what they’re hiring for.
Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
DS Smith plc invites a Cluster Technical Specialist to lead customer-facing technical support across nine sites. You will identify risks, coordinate effective solutions and drive continuous improvement while building strong customer relationships.
You will work with Quality, Operations, Design, Sales and Innovation to proactively address challenges and promote best practices across the network.
Qualifications
- Significant manufacturing experience, preferably corrugated packaging.
- Strong technical, operations or quality background.
- Proven ability to solve technical and process challenges.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
- Ability to influence teams without direct authority.
- Experience with 8D or root cause analysis methodologies.
- Organised with good prioritisation and scheduling.
- Full UK driving licence.
Responsibilities
- Act as first technical contact for product performance and manufacturing concerns.
- Conduct technical investigations using structured methods (8D/RCA).
- Visit sites to identify risks before they become issues.
- Build trusted relationships with customer operations, engineering and quality.
- Deliver technical guidance and training to improve packaging line performance.
- Support new product introductions and customer onboarding.
- Maintain records of visits, actions and risk assessments.
Skills
Education
Tools
Job description
Help Shape the Future of Technical Excellence at DS Smith
At DS Smith, we're redefining how we support our customers through innovation, collaboration and operational excellence. We are establishing a brand-new Technical Specialist team that will play a critical role in supporting our packaging operations, enhancing customer performance and driving continuous improvement across our network.
This is an exciting opportunity to be part of something new. As a Cluster Technical Specialist, you will help develop and shape a key role within the business, working across nine packaging sites while acting as the trusted technical partner for our customers.
If you thrive on solving complex manufacturing challenges, building strong customer relationships and influencing positive change, we'd love to hear from you.
The Cluster Technical Specialist is a highly visible customer-facing role responsible for supporting customers and manufacturing sites by providing expert technical guidance, identifying risks before they become issues and coordinating effective solutions when challenges arise.
“Own the technical relationship, influence the resolution.”
You will work closely with Quality, Operations, Design, Sales and Innovation teams to proactively address technical challenges while helping to build a culture of continuous improvement across the business.
- Act as the first technical point of contact for customer product performance, quality and manufacturing concerns.
- Conduct technical investigations and root cause analysis using structured methodologies such as 8D and RCA.
- Visit customer sites to identify and mitigate technical risks before they develop into customer complaints.
- Build trusted relationships with customer operations, engineering and quality teams.
- Deliver technical guidance and practical training to support customer packaging line performance.
- Support new product introductions and customer onboarding activities.
- Maintain accurate records of customer visits, actions, technical findings and risk assessments.
- Drive improvements in product consistency, quality and manufacturing performance.
- Lead and support customer trials. – Support customer trials as required (operations/quality own production trials)
- Identify trends, recurring issues and improvement opportunities across multiple sites.
- Provide design-for-runnability feedback to Design and Manufacturing teams.
- Work with external suppliers including tooling, print plate and form manufacturers to improve product performance.
- Gather technical insight from customers, operations, quality, design and sales teams.
- Identify emerging technical risks and share learnings across the network.
- Track technical issues through to resolution while maintaining clear customer communication.
- Support product simplification and standardisation initiatives.
- Contribute to a proactive, preventative approach to quality and technical performance.
- Partner with Innovation Specialists on customer development opportunities.
- Work closely with Sales, Design, Production and Quality teams.
- Share best practice across the wider technical community.
- Maintain a proactive balance of approximately 60% preventative activity and 40% reactive support.
About You We're looking for a well-rounded technical professional who combines strong manufacturing expertise with excellent customer and stakeholder management skills. You'll enjoy building relationships, solving technical challenges and driving continuous improvement across multiple sites.
Excited by the opportunity to join a newly created team, you'll play a key role in shaping technical support within DS Smith, influencing best practice and making a real impact on customer satisfaction, product quality and operational performance, while further developing your own technical and leadership capabilities.
- Significant experience within a manufacturing environment, ideally corrugated packaging.
- Strong operational, technical or quality background.
- Proven experience solving technical and process challenges.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
- Ability to influence teams and drive action without direct authority.
- Experience using structured problem-solving techniques such as 8D or Root Cause Analysis.
- Strong organisational and prioritisation skills.
- Full UK driving licence.
- Corrugated packaging manufacturing experience.
- Knowledge of corrugator and conversion processes, including printing, die‑cutting and gluing/folding operations.
- Customer‑facing technical support experience.
- Six Sigma, Lean or Continuous Improvement qualifications.
- ISO 9001 or BRCGS Packaging Materials knowledge.
- Experience working with CRM, QMS or ERP systems.
- Degree qualification in Engineering, Packaging, Manufacturing, Design or a related discipline.
- Competitive salary
- Discretionary bonus
- 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays
- Pension scheme, life assurance and income protection
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Employee Discounts
- Cycle to work scheme
Location: Remote with UK Travel – Supporting designated DS Smith sites and focus customers.
Hours: Monday to Friday – 09:00 – 17:00
We are DS Smith, together with International Paper, we are a global leader in sustainable packaging solutions and other fibre-based products. We believe a better, more sustainable tomorrow is possible with the right people, who challenge and support one another to enact positive change. We employ more than 65,000 colleagues in North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), who are experts in innovation, manufacturing, design, sales, sustainability, supply chain, and much more. Together with our customers, we make the world safer and more productive, one sustainable packaging solution at a time. Become part of a world-leading organisation and do your best work with us!
Our people come from diverse backgrounds, bring different perspectives, ideas and experiences to generate unique solutions focused on present and future sustainability challenges. We welcome all candidates to apply, even those not meeting all criteria
'/%3e%3cpath%20d='M101.744%2012.4726L102.894%2016.1947L99.0021%2013.2201L101.744%2012.4726ZM105.3%208.40937H100.488L99.0026%203.59473L97.5116%208.41047L92.7%208.40385L96.5965%2011.3834L95.1055%2016.1942L99.0021%2013.2196L101.408%2011.3834L105.3%208.40992V8.40937Z'%20fill='white'/%3e%3cdefs%3e%3clinearGradient%20id='paint0_linear_5593_1381'%20x1='90'%20y1='9.44471'%20x2='99'%20y2='9.44471'%20gradientUnits='userSpaceOnUse'%3e%3cstop%20stop-color='%2300AD70'/%3e%3cstop%20offset='0.998594'%20stop-color='%2300B67A'/%3e%3cstop%20offset='1'%20stop-color='%23DCDCE6'/%3e%3c/linearGradient%3e%3c/defs%3e%3c/svg%3e){kind=small}
