Principal Product Development Engineer

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Seek and evaluate new ingredients and technologies in pursuit of developing unique product offerings in confectionary OTC and supplement markets, engaging suppliers/vendors, and translating insights into scalable development strategies.
• Translate product briefs and consumer needs into formulation strategies that meet dose targets, sensory attributes, and manufacturability requirements.
• Prepare product samples, test, and analyze physical and sensory attributes (e.g., texture, moisture, pH, and color) against defined acceptance criteria, and link results to stability and scale-up decisions to develop a comprehensive data package.
• Execute Design of Experiments (DOEs) to identify critical drivers (critical process parameters and critical quality attributes; CPP/CQA), define robust parameter windows, and improve scale-up repeatability with clear analysis recommendations.
• Develop strategic partnerships with external industry leaders and internal stakeholders to generate scalable opportunities for product platforms, informing portfolio decisions and manufacturability.
• Engage with cross-functional teams including quality, procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, regulatory, and commercial to resolve development and improvement issues, align translation standards (bench/pilot representativeness, sampling), and drive commercialization readiness.
• Establish and maintain soft-chew CPP/CQA strategy across programs, including selection rationale, parameter window development, monitoring requirements, and capability expectations (e.g., variance analysis, and process capability/performance index [Cpk/Ppk] where applicable).
• Define and govern phase-/stage-gate technical standards (deliverables, acceptance criteria, escalation triggers) and audit Gate readiness across programs to ensure disciplined decisions and resource allocation.
• Own product stability strategy (risk assessment, study design, acceptance criteria, interpretation) to ensure stability evidence supports scale-up decisions and commercialization readiness.
• Support knowledge capture and organizational knowledge growth via effective data summaries, reports, and presentations.
• Mentor peers and junior scientists on best practices and product knowledge.

People Leader Responsibilities

• Actively supervise, hire, train, schedule, coach, and develop assigned employees.
• Provide task direction to team members and On the Job Training (OJT) for new hires (Onboarding).
• Listen to team members' feedback and resolve/report any issues or conflicts.
• Conduct performance reviews and manage individual performance.
• Recommend personnel actions (pay adjustments, promotions, transfers, terminations).
• Communicate personnel actions following Human Resources and Department Head approval.
• Ensure safety and quality standards are enforced and met.

Required Qualifications

• Education & Experience: Bachelor’s degree in a pharmaceutical science, chemical engineering, food science, chemistry, or related scientific discipline. 10 years’ experience in product development engineering, science, or similar function.
• Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities (KSAs): Proficient with Microsoft Office and database, project management and ERP software, as well as PLM/documentation stage-gate tools and statistical/visualization software (e.g., DOE/analysis platforms) used to support evidence-based decisions.
• Working knowledge of cGMP and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP), with strong documentation discipline, change-control rigor, and the ability to assemble evidence packages that meet Gate expectations in regulated environments.
• Strong business acumen: ability to leverage scientific trends to identify future business opportunities and make data-driven recommendations that balance consumer experience, manufacturability, and commercialization risk/benefit.
• Strong leadership, technical excellence, innovation, analytical, organization, detail orientation, and collaboration abilities; applies systems thinking to build repeatable methods (standards, controls, decision frameworks) that improve consistency across programs.
• Demonstrated original thinking and creativity; Meets challenges with resourcefulness, generates suggestions for improving work, develops innovative approaches and ideas, and presents ideas and information in a manner that gets others' attention, and applies structured experimentation to explore new product concepts.
• Ability to prioritize tasks, utilize time efficiently, and multi-task in an ever changing, fast-paced environment.
• Ability to demonstrate practical problem solving and trouble shooting skills.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in food science, chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, or related field.
• Experience in formulation or product development of OTC or Dietary Supplement or food products.
• Experience developing and commercializing oral drug products under US monograph or NDA regulations.
• Experience with regulatory bodies including FDA and NSF.
• Proven formulation and product scale-up experience in a cGMP environment.
• Statistical software experience (Minitab, Statgraphics, etc.) with the ability to interpret data and drive action.