Senior R&D Leader - Bakery & Frozen Food Innovation

DSJ Global; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 120,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

DSJ Global is seeking an experienced R&D Manager for a leading food manufacturer to lead product development, innovation, commercialization, and process improvement in a high-volume setting. You will manage a small technical R&D team and collaborate with Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, and Marketing to translate customer needs into scalable products across bakery, dough, refrigerated, and frozen lines.

Travel may be required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Food Engineering, Product Development, or a related technical discipline.
• Approximately 5-10 years of progressive experience within food R&D, product development, commercialization, or a related technical function.
• Previous experience managing and developing technical employees or cross‑functional teams.
• Experience within bakery, dough manufacturing, refrigerated foods, frozen foods, or closely related food categories is strongly preferred.
• Proven experience taking products from formulation and development through scale‑up and commercialization.
• Strong familiarity with food manufacturing operations, quality systems, and food safety requirements.
• Master's degree is a plus but not required.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of R&D and technical product development professionals.
• Establish team priorities, goals, project timelines, and performance expectations.
• Mentor employees in product development, formulation, manufacturing processes, troubleshooting, and commercialization.
• Evaluate team capabilities, workloads, and resource requirements to ensure projects remain aligned with business priorities.
• Promote a collaborative, accountable, safety-focused, and continuous-improvement culture.
• Encourage data-driven decision-making and structured technical problem-solving across the R&D organization.
• Lead the development and optimization of bakery, dough-based, refrigerated, and frozen food products.
• Manage product formulation, ingredient selection, processing parameters, packaging considerations, shelf-life improvements, and product performance.
• Identify opportunities to improve existing products through quality enhancements, cost optimization, waste reduction, sustainability, and improved manufacturability.
• Evaluate new ingredients, processing technologies, equipment, and industry trends to identify opportunities for innovation.
• Translate customer, consumer, and commercial needs into technically feasible new products.
• Ensure new products can successfully transition from laboratory development through pilot and full-scale manufacturing.
• Manage multiple R&D and commercialization projects from initial concept through successful launch.
• Establish project timelines, milestones, technical requirements, resources, priorities, and risk-management plans.
• Lead plant trials, scale-up activities, process validations, and production start-ups.
• Work cross-functionally with Operations, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, Procurement, Sales, and Marketing to ensure successful execution.
• Communicate project status, technical risks, challenges, and recommendations to key stakeholders and senior leadership.
• Provide technical expertise for strategic customer initiatives and customer-facing discussions when needed.

Skills

People leadership

Project management

Cross-functional collaboration

Analytical problem-solving

Communication skills

Mentoring & coaching

Education

Bachelor's degree in Food Science or related field

Job description

DSJ Global is seeking an experienced R&D Manager for a leading food manufacturer to lead product development, innovation, commercialization, and process improvement in a high-volume setting. You will manage a small technical R&D team and collaborate with Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, and Marketing to translate customer needs into scalable products across bakery, dough, refrigerated, and frozen lines.

Travel may be required.