Sr. Manager, Commercialization & Process Development

RYZE

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

RYZE was founded in 2019 by Andrée Werner and Rashad Hossain, out of a parents' basement, with a mission to change daily health, starting with the morning routine: a nutrient-dense mushroom coffee delivering clean energy, mental clarity, and immune support. Built on a Direct-to-Consumer foundation with a performance marketing engine, RYZE achieved hockey-stick growth and a community of over 1 million active subscribers. DTC remains the foundation, but RYZE has expanded into mass retail, quickly becoming the #2 item in Target's overall coffee category and is now executing a multi-channel expansion, with a cross-category launch coming in early 2027. RYZE is uniquely positioned to redefine how people think about daily wellness. We’re a lean, fast-moving, mission-driven team who believe daily rituals create the foundation for living your greatest life, and we’re just getting started! This role exists first to close the gap between what R&D and ideation create and what actually runs, reliably and at full scale, on a co-manufacturer's equipment. It starts with taking a formula from gold-standard bench sample through trial, first production, and continuous improvement. Once a product is running cleanly, this person stays connected as a technical resource to the wider site-facing quality team, so the process knowledge and relationships built during commercialization inform ongoing production rather than getting handed off and lost. This is a new position on the Manufacturing team, created because our fastest-growing need isn't more ideation; it's the ability to take what R&D and ideation create land it intact at full manufacturing scale and then keep it running to spec day to day. The ideal person has lived on both sides of that line: formulation and scale-up trials on one side, hands-on plant and quality experience (blenders, augers, packaging lines, audits) on the other.

Requirements

Bachelor Degree preferred plus 8 years of experience.
Experience spanning both R&D/formulation scale-up (bench → pilot → first production) and hands-on plant or co-manufacturer support; ingredient-supplier or contract- manufacturing background is a strong plus.
Working knowledge of blending and processing equipment (paddle blenders, V- blenders, ribbon blenders, augers, packaging lines) across food, beverage, or nutritional products.
Direct experience with GFSI audits (SQF, BRC) and food safety/quality documentation, ideally from both the auditee and technical-support sides, comfortable advising the site-facing quality team rather than owning the day-to-day audit relationship.
Demonstrated ability to build trust-based relationships with manufacturing partners and to have direct, difficult conversations when needed.
Comfortable with variable travel to assigned manufacturing sites, planned around commercialization and launch milestones rather than as the primary on-call, short-notice responder.

Responsibilities

Own the transition of new formulas from bench-top “gold standard” samples through plant trials, first production runs, and continuous improvement, ensuring the process, not just the recipe, transfers to each manufacturer's specific equipment (e.g., tumble blenders vs. ribbon blenders vs. V-blenders).
Loop in early on new formulations, before they're finalized, to flag equipment or process mismatches before they become a rework problem.
Partner with the sensory and R&D teams to determine whether a site-specific standard is warranted when equipment differences make an exact match to the master gold standard impractical, and document the rationale.
Lead the handoff from trial/first production into steady-state production, staying attached to the SKU and site rather than dropping it once it's running.
Partner with New Product Launch teams during launch planning to confirm our manufacturing network has the equipment and process capability to take a product from pilot production to full-scale, everyday production runs, flagging capability gaps early enough to address them before launch.
Support the Sr. Director of Manufacturing & Supply in maintaining a clear, current view of existing and prospective manufacturing capabilities across the network, and help organize a portfolio of manufacturers so future projects can be matched to the right site with confidence.
Act as a resource and advisor to the wider site-facing technical/quality team, sharing the process and equipment context built during commercialization so they can troubleshoot day-to-day production issues without starting from scratch.
Provide insight on performance against sensory and quality targets set by the sensory/R&D team, helping the site-facing team interpret drift and connect it back to the original scale-up intent.
Lend expertise to site audits (SQF, BRC, customer audits) as needed, helping pressure-test risk assessments and confirm corrective/preventive actions go deeper than “retraining,” without owning the audit relationship day to day.
Flag when a site's day-to-day practice appears to be drifting from what's documented, and route it to the site-facing quality owner for follow-up.
Support root-cause investigations when something breaks (an out-of-spec test result, a quality deviation, an ingredient or process failure) by contributing process knowledge and clarity on how the product is expected to be produced at that specific co-man.
Coordinate with the broader manufacturing coverage team and site-facing quality owners so investigations draw on the right process expertise without depending on any one person's availability.
Build genuine, collaborative relationships with co-manufacturer teams (quality, engineering, and operations) grounded in the mindset that Ryze and the co-man are on the same team working the same problem.
Represent Ryze's standards clearly and directly, including in difficult conversations, while maintaining the trust needed for co-mans to raise issues early rather than hide them.