Manager, Product Development

Our North America Innovation Center sits at the heart of The Coca-Cola Company’s next chapter of growth. We are committed to transforming and evolving our organization and ambitions — bringing our people closer to the consumer, continuously raising the bar, and embracing digitalization to enable sustainable growth. We are looking for a highly driven individual contributor who thrives on ownership and impact, and who fuels the innovation pipeline with bold ideas that translate into real-world results. This role is about challenging assumptions, unlocking opportunity, and personally driving valuable breakthrough innovation.

About the Role

As a Manager, Product Development, you will lead the execution of complex and diverse product development initiatives to accelerate bottom- and top-line growth, bringing concepts to life through advanced formulation, testing, and commercialization. You will drive local and regional projects in close partnership with cross-functional teams, applying deep technical expertise, market insights, and digital tools to ensure products meet consumer expectations, quality standards, regulatory requirements, and manufacturing realities. This is a hands-on, individual contributor role for a seasoned problem-solver who thrives on technical ownership, cross-functional collaboration, and delivering high-impact beverage innovations.

Responsibilities

• Apply expertise in ingredients, formulations, and processing to develop safe, high-quality beverages and ensure compliance with technical and regulatory requirements.
• Develop lab-scale recipes from ideation through commercialization, incorporating consumer insights, technical and supply chain requirements, and regulatory standards while leveraging system processes and tools.
• Evaluate ingredients against sensory, analytical, safety, and efficacy standards, and determine their impact on new and existing beverage formulations.
• Partner with Marketing, Procurement, Supply Chain, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Packaging, and Quality teams to deliver successful launches and business continuity initiatives while leveraging global technical expertise and best practices.
• Participate in and lead cross-functional project meetings to align stakeholders, resolve issues, and execute projects.
• Provide technical leadership to advance and sustain products that are critical to the beverage portfolio, ensuring continuity of supply and cost effectiveness while maintaining the highest quality standards.
• Prepare technical reports documenting analyses, experiments, and project outcomes. Gather and organize information under tight timelines to support informed business and technical decision-making.
• Develop subject matter expertise across internal ingredient, formula, inventory, and blends management tools.
• Maintain laboratory equipment and work environments in accordance with safety, quality, compliance, and documentation standards to support product development initiatives.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Nutrition, or related field is required; Master’s degree is preferred.
• 4-6 years of successful beverage industry experience, specific to product development. Juice experience preferred.
• General knowledge of beverage ingredients including juices, flavors, and dry ingredients is helpful.
• Ability to recognize and protect proprietary information as it relates to formulas and ingredients.
• Willingness to share ideas and differences of opinion with other scientists regarding project work.
• Familiarity with existing Coca-Cola systems, processes, and tools is preferred.
• Ability to learn and apply project management principles in everyday work.
• Sound knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook), and ability to quickly adapt to communication tools used within the department/function.
• Ability to leverage prior education, literature, and experiences to execute scientific research projects within scope of briefs provided by other technical experts or supervisor.
• Ability to apply technical knowledge and establish credibility through written reports and verbal presentations with highly technical audiences.
• Fluent in English; regional languages a plus.
• Regional travel up to 20%.
• Must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis without requiring sponsorship.

Pay

Base pay range: 109,000 USD - 129,000 USD. Pay offered may vary depending on geography, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. A full range of medical, financial, and other benefits is offered, dependent on the position.

Annual Incentive reference value is a market-based competitive value for the role, set at 15% and indicating performance at target.

Long-term Incentive reference value ranges from 0% to 20%.