Technical Product Specialist

OSI Group • Aurora, IL

10h • Hybrid

About The Position

As a premier global food provider, the OSI Group partners with the world’s leading foodservice and retail food brands to provide concept-to-table solutions that delight consumers around the globe. Join us and discover a work experience where diverse ideas are met with enthusiasm, and where you can learn and grow to your full potential. We’re looking for individuals who thrive in an entrepreneurial environment and who enjoy working as a team to deliver unparalleled service and solutions to our customers. This is a highly visible, customer-facing role at the intersection of food innovation, restaurant operations, and product commercialization. You’ll partner with one of the world’s leading quick service restaurant brands to ensure products perform seamlessly—from concept through launch and into daily execution in restaurants. Acting as a critical link between corporate stakeholders, field operations, and cross-functional internal teams (R&D, culinary, operations, and sales), you’ll translate real-world restaurant insights into product improvements, support new product rollouts, and help drive continuous innovation. This role blends strategic thinking with hands-on field engagement, including regular restaurant visits to evaluate product performance and identify meaningful opportunities for improvement. Success in this role requires someone who is motivated, curious, and self-directed—able to operate independently while staying closely aligned with multiple stakeholders. You’re comfortable communicating with everyone from frontline restaurant teams to senior executives, and you know how to tailor your message to each audience. Importantly, this is not a “check-the-box” field role. You’re expected to go beyond surface-level observations—digging into the details, asking the right questions, and uncovering actionable insights around product quality, execution, and consistency. You bring back more than visit summaries; you deliver perspective that drives decisions. You’ll thrive here if you’re equally comfortable discussing menu innovation, operational execution, and customer needs, and enjoy working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment where you can directly influence both product strategy and in-restaurant success. This role supports one of the world’s leading foodservice brands by delivering high-quality, value-added food solutions. The position is responsible for aligning OSI’s product offerings with the evolving needs of both our customers and end consumers, ensuring strategic fit, innovation, and operational excellence.

Requirements

• Excellent proficiency in all Microsoft Office Suite Products.
• Demonstrated excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• 5 or more years of food or meat industry research and development or culinary experience.
• Demonstrated ability to achieve goals in a team-oriented environment.
• Possess the technological capabilities and understand to communicate in today’s business environment.
• Ability to listen, gain trust and bring to closure an action, project, resolution, or sale with customers.
• Ability to identify process gaps and identify solutions to resolve.
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Strong level of written and verbal communication skills, organizational planning, teamwork, analytical reasoning, and adaptability.
• Ability to communicate clearly, both verbally and in writing, externally with customers and internally with all levels of management.

Nice To Haves

• 3-5 years of experience in related field is preferred.
• BA/BS or equivalent is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Job is an individual contributor.
• Job is an individual contributor and has no direct reports.
• This individual works independently while collaborating cross-functionally.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with this key account’s corporate teams, franchisees, field operations, and distribution partners to support product performance and identify improvement opportunities.
• Monitor and analyze food industry and quick service restaurant (QSR) trends to inform product strategy, identify opportunities for innovation, and support competitive differentiation.
• Prepare and communicate insights from restaurant visits, product performance data, and market observations to inform product development, operational improvements, and customer strategy.
• Explore new ways of improving existing products. Provide product training, relevant technical expertise to sales team to enable them to sell the product.
• Partner with OSI’s and customer’s R&D, Culinary and Operations teams to make sure that product requirements and customer needs are understood and collaborate to solve problems.
• Coordinate product commercialization with the sales, product development, plant operations and customer service teams. to ensure successful product launches and execution within the customers system.
• Monitor OSI product performance in restaurants and distribution centers, identifying trends and opportunities to improve product quality, execution, and customer satisfaction.
• Investigate and resolve customer complaints and concerns in a timely manner by interacting directly with appropriate personnel including Corporate, Distribution Centers and store level employees.
• Act as an information and training resource to the customer’s operations and staff personnel by conducting scheduled in-store visits in assigned region(s).
• Develop and maintain a strong understanding of the customer’s restaurant operations, cooking procedures, and equipment performance to ensure OSI products consistently deliver optimal quality in restaurant environments.
• Participate in training activities surrounding new product introductions and new procedure implementations.
• Facilitate the exchange of information and expertise within the company’s partnership with the customer & Corporate Supply Chain.
• This role has the responsibility to understand and place appropriate safety procedures in practice. This responsibility is achieved through education, training, and use of protective equipment (as applicable) and by following safety policies, regulations, standards, and laws.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• comprehensive paid time off (sick, vacation, holidays and other programs)
• 401k with matching company contributions
• a full suite of benefit offerings (medical, dental, vision, life, disability and other voluntary coverages) for you and your family
• educational assistance with opportunities for professional development
• company annual discretionary bonus plan based on company and individual performance

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree