Senior R&D Lifecycle Leader for Formulation & Commercialization

Dairy Farmers of America

Springfield (MO)

On-site

USD 120,000 - 160,000

Full time

2 days ago

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Job summary

Dairy Farmers of America seeks a Sr. Scientist – R&D Life Cycle to lead complex lifecycle workstreams from concept through launch.

You will govern opportunity intake, briefs, documentation, sensory reviews, and readiness while coordinating with formulation, process design, validation, pilot plants, and commercial teams. You will drive lifecycle discipline, data analytics, and documentation standards, enabling faster scale-up and successful product commercialization across dairy categories.

Qualifications

B.S. degree in Food Science, Dairy Science, Biological Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Business, Operations, Project Management, or related discipline required; M.S. and/or Ph.D. desirable.
6+ years of industry experience in R&D, product development, formulation, commercialization, food manufacturing, lifecycle management, technical program management, process improvement, operations, or related food industry function.
Demonstrated progression in technical responsibilities and ability to lead complex projects or cross-functional workstreams with limited supervision.
Experience developing or optimizing food and/or dairy formulations and leading or improving stage-gate, lifecycle, project management, resource planning, documentation, data analytics, or commercialization processes preferred.
Food, dairy, ingredient, beverage, cultured, frozen, powder, filtration, aseptic/ESL/retort, or related manufacturing experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead medium-to-large or complex lifecycle workstreams and/or multiple concurrent projects, owning lifecycle plans, timing, risks, governance checkpoints, and deliverables.
Serve as a senior gatekeeper for assigned opportunities, confirming briefs, approvals, documentation, sensory reviews, technical validation, and commercialization readiness requirements are complete before projects advance.
Review opportunity briefs in depth to clarify customer needs, business value, technical feasibility, project scope, success criteria, decision rights, resource needs, and timing expectations.
Remove barriers for stuck or high-priority opportunities by aligning R&D, sales, marketing, innovation, operations, process technology, QA/food safety, regulatory, procurement, finance, supply planning, and business leadership.
Set expectations and coach project teams on lifecycle discipline, standard work, documentation rigor, clean handoffs, and readiness requirements.
Lead lifecycle-critical systems, schedules, templates, dashboards, and project tracking routines used to manage opportunity flow, resource allocation, and commercialization readiness.
Partner with the AVP – R&D Lifecycle and R&D leadership to prioritize work, balance workloads, maximize resources, and ensure the team is focused on the right opportunities and highest-value work.
Develop, maintain, analyze, and communicate lifecycle KPIs including sample turnaround time, first-round acceptance rate, scale-up success, commercialization success, documentation efficiency, project cycle time, resource utilization, and ROI impact.
Use data and process observations to identify bottlenecks, resource constraints, recurring failure points, data quality issues, process gaps, and improvement opportunities across the R&D pipeline.
Lead implementation and optimization of lifecycle-enabling tools such as stage-gate processes, pipeline approvals, development updates, formula/cost modeling inputs, ingredient databases, specifications, labeling workflows, and commercialization tracking.