Head Roaster in Slough

Old Spike Roastery is a specialty coffee social enterprise based in South London. Every bag we sell funds meaningful employment and support for people experiencing homelessness. We roast and ship exceptional coffee every week to wholesale cafe accounts, offices, restaurants, and direct-to-consumer customers across the UK. We're looking for a Head Roaster to lead the quality and coffee side of our roastery as we continue to grow.

This is a senior, hands-on role responsible for everything that goes into the cup, from sourcing and selecting green coffee through to roasting, quality control, and blend development. You'll lead a small roasting team, manage our roasting schedule, and be the person who sets and maintains the quality standard across everything we roast.

We're currently roasting high volumes per week across wholesale, retail, and e-commerce, and that volume is continuing to grow. We need someone who is comfortable operating at that scale without compromising on quality, and someone who understands that specialty quality and volume aren't mutually exclusive. You must understand customer needs and preferences within the scope of specialty, and the importance of meeting those requirements.

You'll work closely with our Roastery Operations Manager, who handles the commercial and logistics side of the site, and with senior management on sourcing strategy, budgets, and new product development.

What You'll Be Doing

• Roasting / Profiling: leading all production roasting on our Giesen W30A, creating and maintaining and adapting roast profiles, ensuring consistency and quality across every batch.
• Green coffee sourcing and management: building and maintaining relationships with importers and traders, cupping and evaluating samples, selecting coffees that align with our quality and sustainability standards and commercial needs.
• Forecasting: building a sourcing schedule for all the Old Spike line based on future harvest and arrivals from different origins.
• Quality control: leading the QC process including cupping, roast analysis, and roast logs; setting the benchmark for Old Spike Standards.
• Blend development: creating and refining our core blends and seasonal offerings ahead of time.
• Budget and margin: managing the green coffee budget, understanding and tracking added costs, and calculating margin across our product range.
• Production planning: building and managing the weekly roasting schedule in line with order volumes, stock levels, and fulfilment deadlines.
• Team leadership: line managing the Production Roaster and any supporting roasting assistants; setting standards, running check-ins, and developing the team's skills and coffee knowledge.
• Equipment: owning the maintenance and care of the Giesen W30A and all roastery equipment.
• Coffee training: leading internal coffee education for the wider team.
• Marketing support: source traceability and marketing material from importers for new releases.
• Client-facing and business development: attending client cuppings and tastings to support our sales and account management team.
• Industry representation: representing Old Spike at industry events, exhibitions, and competitions.

About You

• You have significant experience as a Head or Senior Roaster in a specialty coffee environment.
• Confident sourcing green coffee: you've worked directly with importers, cupped extensively, and made buying decisions based on quality, availability, and cost.
• Knowledgeable about sustainability concepts and standards.
• Strong on numbers: you're comfortable managing a budget and understanding how sourcing decisions affect margin.
• A calm, positive and capable team leader.
• Organised and production-minded: you can plan a roasting schedule that keeps up with demand.
• A clear communicator: you can talk coffee with importers and explain flavour to customers.
• Comfortable in a client-facing environment.
• Passionate about quality but pragmatic about scale.
• Experience with Cropster or similar software is a strong advantage.
• Food safety knowledge (HACCP Level 3 or similar) is desirable.
• Motivated by working somewhere that stands for something.

Benefits

• Access to industry events and coffee exhibitions.
• An additional holiday day for every year you stay with us.
• Staff rewards app with benefits across restaurants, retail stores, gyms and more.
• Free coffee on and off shift, 50% staff discount on all other products.
• NEST Pension scheme.
• Flexible working hours.

Old Spike Roastery is a London living wage employer and an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from people with lived experience of homelessness or the criminal justice system.

We are ideally looking for someone to start mid-late July, but will also consider candidates who can start in August. Please apply via the link or email including a cover letter, to submit your application.