Product Taster / Product Developer — Supplements (China, on-site — Shanghai or Guangzhou area)

We're Jello, a German D2C supplement brand. Nine months old, €1.3M a month, built by three German e-commerce operators. Not our first brand. We're not here to grow 2% a year, or 10%. We're here to take over the German supplement space — and the numbers say we're on track. More products, more markets, much more coming. Who this is for People who love the work itself — not just the paycheck. We'll be straight with you: this job means factory towns, waiting around, and weekends when a batch runs. The bar is high and we expect precision without excuses. In return, we invest heavily in the people who deliver. If you want a comfortable 9-to-5, stop reading here. If you're hungry, keep going. The role — we're hiring for one of two: 1. Product Developer — you take over product development for us directly: formula, taste, factory. You own the full chain from recipe to production. 2. Taster — you are our palate in China, and we develop you into a full Product Developer over time. That path is built into the role. Either way, the core is the same: our products are made here — and every batch, every sample round at factories and labs gets tasted in person, before anything moves forward. You taste, you describe precisely ("raspberry ~30% weaker, metallic aftertaste from second three" — not "tastes a bit different"), you tell the factory exactly what to change, and you stand by what you taste no matter who pushes back. Right now the founders fly to China and sit in factory towns to do this themselves. Your job is to make that unnecessary: your reports become the thing our decisions are made from. And this doesn't end once a product is live: every production run keeps passing through you. You check each batch against the approved reference sample, and when the factory says "normal variation, we're filling it" — you stop it and escalate. No batch moves forward past you. We do NOT care about your CV (still send one!). We care whether you can taste and describe — and we will test exactly that, live. Chefs, baristas, F&B and sensory people, QC tasters: this is for you. Supplement or product-development experience is a bonus, not a requirement — if you have it, you're a candidate for the full Product Developer role from day one. Hard requirements An exceptional palate — you taste differences other people miss, and you can hold a reference taste in your memory for days (we will test this, live and blind) Precise description — your words are the data our decisions run on Based anywhere in China — you just need to be able to travel to Shanghai on short notice for an in-person interview. Shanghai or close by is a strong plus English good enough that your precision survives in a written report Ready to travel across China, days to weeks at factories and labs when needed — available now --- Compensation — and the staircase this role is built on We start as a paid contract through Upwork (this post is contract-to-hire): your first trial tasks and trial month are billed right here. Deliver, and the role converts into the full position below. Taster: €2,000/month base (≈ RMB 16,000), plus a €600 monthly bonus when you deliver your monthly milestone — so up to €2,600 from month one — plus travel, hotel and food on us. Coming in as the full Product Developer directly? €3,000/month base, same bonus logic, same staircase upward. And here's the part that matters if you're ambitious: this role is a staircase, and every step is already mapped. Prove yourself as the palate. Take on your first product-development work — your base rises. Own a full product-development chain — it rises again. Become our Product Developer — €3,000 base, and the next steps continue from there. Every step is triggered by something you DELIVERED, not by years served or by asking nicely. --- Why this works here and almost nowhere else We are not a flat company growing 10% a year, where you do the same job every year and wait for someone above you to leave. We're doubling and stacking new products, new markets, new roles — which means the people already inside get handed more responsibility as fast as they can prove they carry it. We invest in the people who deliver: more scope, more ownership, more pay. The taster who joins us now and turns out to be a killer is the Product Developer of this company in a few months — that path is not a promise we dangle, it's a staircase with defined steps that already exists on paper. How to apply Record a 3-minute video answering these questions — your phone camera is fine, no editing, no script. Send it as a file or any video link (Loom is the easiest): Who are you, where in China are you based, which of the two roles are you applying for, how many days per month could you be at a factory or travelling on short notice — and could you come to Shanghai for an in-person interview this week? Buy these two products: 农夫山泉100%鲜果冷压榨橙汁 + 味全每日100%橙汁 (photo below). Taste both before recording, and tell us the three concrete differences. "One is sweeter" doesn't count. This job means factory towns, waiting around, and weekends when a batch runs. Tell us about the last time you put work and quality over everything else — worked through a weekend, redid something that was already "good enough". What was it, concretely? A batch deviates from the approved sample. The factory says: "normal batch variation, we're filling it." What do you do? Submit your proposal here on Upwork with the video (file or link) and your CV attached. (Yes, we still want the CV — for context, not as a filter. The video is what counts.) We reply within 24 hours.