Principal Engineer, R&D - Design & Innovation
About The Position
As the Design & Innovation Packaging Engineer, you will identify, lead and drive innovative and disruptive packaging design initiatives that will be instrumental in delivering novel, competitively advantaged solutions across the Kraft Heinz North America portfolio. The team’s objective is to deliver packaging design strategies, translating brand strategies and consumer Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) into viable design solutions to meet growth, innovation and sustainability objectives. The objective of the role is to support development of platformable pkg innovation solutions, across brands and categories to fuel sustainable BU innovation pipelines. You will partner with the Innovation, Process and Platform packaging teams as well as cross functional stakeholders to translate consumer insights and sustainability requirements into commercially viable, manufacturable solutions. The role includes identifying packaging design solutions, leveraging external design partners and internal consumer experience teams to translate insights into viable designs that resonate with consumers. The ideal candidate combines technical packaging commercialization expertise with design and innovation knowledge and experience managing design and/or innovation projects.
Requirements
- BS/MS/PhD degree in Design, Engineering, Packaging Engineering preferred or related discipline.
- 6+ years of R&D packaging development and commercialization experience, with significant innovation and packaging design experience and project leadership experience (consumer goods, food & beverage, pharma or similar preferred).
- Working design knowledge of materials (flexibles, rigids, fiber, etc), formats, converting processes (e.g., cartoning, filling, web handling, labeling, molding), printing, bottle closure and dispensing systems and manufacturing constraints.
- Demonstrated ability to support end-to-end development and launch activities for packaging complex projects, including planning/performing testing, documenting results, and coordinating with cross-functional partners.
- Working knowledge of packaging design and innovation, DVF (Desirability, Viability, Feasibility) experience a plus
- Excellent communication, negotiation and interpersonal skills; ability to influence at all levels.
- Industrial design experience for packaging materials, shapes, formats, with proven examples of commercialized innovations across multiple packaging formats
- Knowledge of sustainable packaging solutions, material/package industry standards, and regulations (as applicable to rigid plastic packaging development work).
- Skilled at directing consumer insights for packaging
- Skilled at translating consumer insights, consumer Jobs-to-be-done, and market trends into packaging design strategies
- Ability to support pilot line activities and scale-up to industrial production as required.
- Willingness and ability to travel up to 25% of the time.
Nice To Haves
- DVF (Desirability, Viability, Feasibility) experience a plus
Responsibilities
- Lead execution of Design & Innovation initiatives, addressing technical and design hurdles, driving speed to market and enabling competitive advantage.
- Manage multiple initiatives with complex scopes and/or cross enterprise platforms concurrently
- Partner with legal to build robust IP strategies to drive competitive advantage
- Develop and maintain detailed project plans, schedules and budgets and build business cases for project execution.
- Work directly, interface and influence cross-functional team (Marketing, Procurement, Operations and Supply Chain) and vendors.
- Support pkg design/technology award submissions with external sponsors, working with R&D platform teams and suppliers to build submissions for leadership/comms/marketing alignment
- Apply Design of Experiments (DoE), statistics, and problem-solving practices to research, development, and validation work.
- Support prototyping development for consumer testing and assist with pilot line setup and scale-up to industrial production as required to enable commercialization.
- Contribute to knowledge sharing and capability building by documenting learnings, creating technical summaries, and supporting training content or informal coaching as needed.
Benefits
- Coverage for employees (and their eligible dependents) through affordable access to healthcare, protection, and saving for the future, we offer plans tailored to meet you and your family’s needs.
- Events, resources, and learning opportunities that inspire a physical, social, emotional, and financial well-being lifestyle for our employees and their families.
- Medical, Prescription Drug, Dental, Vision, Screenings/Assessments
- Paid Time Off, Company Holidays, Leave of Absence, Flexible Work Arrangements, Recognition, Training
- Employee Assistance Program, Wellbeing Programs, Family Support Programs
- 401k, Life, Accidental Death & Dismemberment, Disability
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
