Senior Manager, R&D - Global Disruptive Innovation

Job Description

Here at Kraft Heinz, we grow our people to grow our business, because we believe that great people make great companies. When you join our table, you can expect access to an array of holistic wellness benefits* and perks, including medical, dental and vision coverage, 7% 401(k) matching, Business Resource Groups (BRGs) to help foster diversity, inclusion, and belonging for all employees, an industry-leading total rewards package that emphasizes a high discretionary bonus.

• Benefits begin 30 days after hire for hourly employees, and immediately upon hire for salaried employees.

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Senior Manager, R&D - Global Disruptive Innovation at a glance...

Are you ready for a challenging and unique type of R&D role? This position is a technical lead on the Global Disruption Innovation R&D team, where the individual will be challenged to immerse themselves with the consumer and develop new pioneering food-based solutions. This individual will work with a small cross-functional team ("pod") where collaboration, trust, and ownership drive the team forward while championing the Agile At Scale process at Kraft Heinz.

This leader will use their technical experience to guide the team on product development, packaging development, process development, quality/food safety, operations, and regulatory matters. They will provide technical leadership in all phases of the project, including feasibility assessments during early exploration, all aspects of development from benchtop through plant trials, and lastly commercialization readiness through market launch.

In addition to this leader's technical depth, they will extend their influence with the team by contributing to other aspects of the project in areas related to consumer insights, marketing, and financial viability. This is an individual contributor role with significant leadership opportunities through organizational influence and partnership with internal technical functional partners.

What's on the menu?

• Collaborate with cross-functional pod to determine key insights and generate potential solutions

• Adopt Agile ways of working, implement Agile @ Scale playbook, provide feedback on developing process

• Lead feasibility workstream for project space

• Lead iterative product/pack/process development from early proto-typing to scalable plant trials

• Design rapid consumer experiments to validate assumptions and improve on product features

• Align with Procurement, Legal, Food Safety and Quality on project guardrails.

• Lead team to scale product for test market launch and associated in-market validation (feasibility tests, specifications, supply chain)

• Coordinate hand off to BU for national launch

• Lead team in technical documentation

• Champion Agile ways of working to all R&D

Recipe for Success - apply now if this sounds like you!

• Experience or desire to learn and apply Agile ways of working

• Extensive experience on the full commercialization process. Knowledge of the commercialization requirements, ability to identify risks and develop creative solutions to deliver end results (4+ years)

• Strong internal network for consultation (Quality, Food Safety, Operations, Processing)

• Strong cross functional collaboration skills accompanied with individual ownership/accountability

• Ability to influence cross functional partners to evolve ways of working (collaborators include Procurement, Legal, FSQ, S&D leads, BU R&D heads)

• Willingness to think and do things differently

• Growth mindset, model lifelong curiosity and learning

• Willingness to take risk

#LI-Hybrid

Location(s)

Glenview R&D Center

Kraft Heinz is an Equal Opportunity Employer that prohibits discrimination or harassment of any type. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Applicants who require an accommodation to participate in the job application or hiring process should contact NATAI@kraftheinz.com .