R&D Manager

Land O'Lakes•Arden Hills, MN

1d•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Sr. Manager of Process Technology R&D to lead efforts around new process development. This individual will serve as a technical leader in Process Technology for the Dairy Foods organization, having responsibilities that span mentoring and directly managing individuals. This is a working-manager role, with approximately 20% of responsibilities focused on people management and 80% focused on leading projects and initiatives. The individual will lead projects focused on scale-up, foundational research, technical problem solving, and process technology innovation. The ideal candidate will have strong technical problem‑solving skills, using engineering fundamentals, statistical design, and modeling to inform approaches and enable innovation, strengthen technical capability, and support business growth.

Requirements

Demonstrated people leadership skills.
Ability to coach, mentor, and influence team members and cross-functional partners through both formal and informal authority
Demonstrated experience with key dairy unit operations, with a high preference for an individual with membrane filtration and/or spray drying experience; expertise in other unit operations will be considered
Deep understanding of dairy chemistry and dairy processing techniques and unit operations is required.
Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, ability to clearly communicate scientific and engineering concepts to non-technical stakeholders and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
Ability to apply statistical design, process analytics, and modeling.
Experience translating bench, pilot, and plant trial development into early design concepts.
BS degree in Chemical, Mechanical, or other related engineering discipline - required
10 or more years of experience - including a deep understanding of dairy chemistry and dairy processing techniques and unit operations, strong project management, statistical design, process analytics, and modeling and translating bench, pilot, and plant trial development into early design concepts - required
3 or more years of management experience - required
Proven track record of leading successful R&D research and process development projects and driving technical innovation in the food industry - required

Nice To Haves

Graduate Degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) or P.E. certification - preferred
Experience working in Dairy manufacturing and pilot plant environments - preferred

Responsibilities

Serve as both a people leader with direct people leadership responsibilities (~20% of time) and a technical leader (~80% of time)
Lead and coordinate project activities related to scale-up from bench/and or pilot plant to commercial scale.
Define process design for new, improved, or revised products and processes and support implementation of commercial designs.
Evaluate project progress and lead team members towards the achievement of tactical project/business objectives.
Use sound experimental methodology, statistics/modeling, and scale-up methodologies to drive results.
Serve as a technical leader, mentoring and training other team members, with both indirect (mentoring) and direct (management) responsibilities.
Execute technical projects with medium to high complexity which could include new process and/or product development, foundational learning, process improvement, and technical problem solving.
Apply deep understanding of engineering principles (mass & energy balances, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics) to inform scale-up, process design, and process improvement/troubleshooting and coach others to do the same.
Lead collaboration and leverage relationships with cross-functional R&D and non-R&D teams, including Product Development, Food Chemistry, Manufacturing, Project Engineers, Marketing, Sales, Quality, Operations, and external parties on moderately complex projects and initiatives.