R&D Lifecycle Lead: Formulation & Commercialization

Dairy Farmers of America; Springfield (MO); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Dairy Farmers of America is seeking a Sr. Scientist in R&D Life Cycle to lead complex lifecycle workstreams, manage governance, and coordinate cross-functional teams from concept through launch.

You will drive formulation development, data-driven decision making, and readiness for commercialization while partnering with regulatory, quality, procurement, and finance teams to ensure robust, scalable product solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; MS/PhD desirable.
• 6+ years’ industry experience in R&D, product development, formulation, or lifecycle management.
• Ability to lead complex projects or cross-functional workstreams with limited supervision.
• Experience with food/dairy formulations, scale-up, and commercialization.

Responsibilities

• Lead lifecycle workstreams and governance, ensuring plans, timing, risks, and deliverables are met.
• Serve as senior gatekeeper for opportunities, confirming briefs, approvals, and readiness.
• Review briefs to clarify customer needs, feasibility, scope, and success criteria.
• Collaborate across R&D, sales, marketing, operations, QA, regulatory, and finance.
• Lead development of lifecycle systems, dashboards, and project tracking.

Skills

R&D lifecycle

Project leadership

Data analytics

Formulation development

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Food Science or related

MS/PhD desirable

Tools

PLM

CRM/Salesforce

Lifecycle tools

Dashboards

Spreadsheets

Job description

Dairy Farmers of America is seeking a Sr. Scientist in R&D Life Cycle to lead complex lifecycle workstreams, manage governance, and coordinate cross-functional teams from concept through launch.

You will drive formulation development, data-driven decision making, and readiness for commercialization while partnering with regulatory, quality, procurement, and finance teams to ensure robust, scalable product solutions.