Research & Engineering Manager

About the role

Join the team behind iconic brands like Huggies®, Kleenex®, Cottonelle®, Scott®, Kotex®, Poise®, Depend®, and Kimberly-Clark Professional®. At Kimberly-Clark, it’s all here for you—innovation, growth, and the chance to make a real impact. You were made to create Better Care for a Better World: exploring uncharted questions, engineering innovative solutions, advancing scientific understanding, and constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. You want to be part of a performance culture dedicated to solving real-world problems with purpose and precision. You want to work in an environment that promotes sustainability, inclusion, wellbeing, and career development. In this role, you’ll help us shape the future and improve lives for billions of people around the world. It starts with YOU.

In one of our Engineering roles, you’ll focus on winning with consumers and the market, while putting safety, mutual respect, and human dignity at the center.

Responsibilities

• Leading and developing a high-performing team to deliver innovative product solutions that address customer needs and drive U by Kotex® tampon business growth.
• Providing people leadership, including talent development, performance management, succession planning, compensation, and organizational effectiveness.
• Coaching and mentoring team members to successfully execute product development, commercialization, lifecycle management, and cost optimization initiatives.
• Ensuring all work is conducted in compliance with FDA Quality System Regulations, internal quality standards, and product safety requirements for Class II medical devices.
• Establishing project timelines, learning plans, resource allocation, and budgets to deliver initiatives against key milestones and business priorities.
• Driving critical business decisions related to product strategy, project execution, launch readiness, risk management, and success criteria.
• Fostering collaboration, removing barriers, communicating project progress transparently, and escalating issues as needed to ensure successful delivery.
• Championing a culture of safety, quality, regulatory compliance, sustainability, innovation, and protection of intellectual property through patents and trade secrets.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in related discipline.
• 7+ years of experience developing and executing product development work in Research & Engineering.
• Demonstrated leadership skills providing work direction to a multi-functional team.
• Comfortable navigating through ambiguity and complexity.
• Demonstrated ability to influence people at all organizational levels, drive decision-making and execute complex projects on demanding timelines.
• Ability to operate with a growth mindset and have strong mental fortitude to lead a team through challenges.
• A history of delivering strong results for the business.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience providing coaching and development of team members.
• Proven ability to collaborate across functions/departments to drive balanced business decisions.
• Prior experience working with FDA regulated products or medical devices.
• Prior experience on U by Kotex® or other branded period care products.
• Prior experience as a Research & Engineering project leader.

Benefits

Kimberly-Clark offers a comprehensive total rewards package. Highlights include:

• Flexible work model blending remote work with intentional in-person collaboration.
• 401(k) and Profit Sharing plan.
• Target bonus eligibility.
• Full benefits suite detailed at www.mykcbenefits.com.

Pay

Salary Range: $127,600 – $157,600 USD (base pay for US locations). Actual pay depends on location, role, skills, performance, and experience. This position offers eligibility for a target bonus and a comprehensive benefits suite, including 401(k) and Profit Sharing plan.

Schedule

• Primary Location: Neenah, WI, USA
• Additional Locations: Roswell, GA, USA
• Worker Type: Employee
• Worker Sub-Type: Regular
• Time Type: Full time

This role is available for local candidates already authorized to work in the role’s country only. Kimberly-Clark will not provide relocation support for this role.