Sr. Manager, Packaging Engineering

Who We Are

The Farmer's Dog was born from a mission to change the landscape of pet health, providing dogs and their humans with honest, smart, and simple care. We're starting by radically improving the $90 billion pet food industry, replacing bags of highly-processed pellets with a personalized subscription service that sends complete and balanced, freshly-made dog food directly to customers' doors. Our ultimate goal is to create innovative, delightful and personalized experiences across all aspects of pet care, and we believe our direct-to-consumer business model, holistic approach to growth, and dynamic culture uniquely position us to shepherd this backwards industry into the future.

To date, The Farmer’s Dog has delivered over 1 billion meals nationwide and raised over $150M in funding to help us build a company as healthy as the dogs who are eating those meals. Join us as we continue to develop ways of bringing peace of mind to customers, health to their companions, and much-needed change to the way people feed and care for their pets.

#LongLiveDogs

What We Stand For and Where You'll Come In

The Sr. Manager, Packaging Engineering will be responsible for the design, development, and implementation of innovative and sustainable packaging solutions for fresh human-graded dog food products. This role requires a deep understanding of packaging technologies, materials, and processes to ensure product freshness, safety, and convenience. This role will collaborate with cross-functional teams to enhance packaging performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

One Team: We don’t think of ourselves as “Acquisition Marketers”, “Engineers”, “Data Analysts”, or “Product Managers”. Beyond denoting skill sets and areas of expertise, we don’t think departments matter. We’d rather align ourselves to the goals we’re working to achieve and make sure we have necessary subject matter expertise to drive meaningful impact. We strive to orient ourselves around customer problems TOGETHER – getting the right people, with the right context, in the right rooms/Zooms to solve problems holistically.

We are skeptical about everything and precious about nothing:  Ideas can and should come from anywhere, and we aren’t tied to our own. We proactively source input. We talk to our customers and leads regularly and are quick to change course if we know there’s a better or more impactful way to solve problems.

We consider the customer journey in all of our decisions:  We know that no interaction exists in a silo and therefore understand how important every single one is.  We ensure our strategy sets prospective and new customers up for success and drives long-term retention.  We answer questions and address problems early and proactively.  We understand the value of different channels, initiatives, and messages and know how to articulate impact and advocate for prioritization holistically.

We Execute For Impact: We don’t subscribe to “best practices” or “industry KPIs”. We’re uninterested in how we compare to “benchmarks”; instead we orient ourselves around being the best we can possibly be. Similarly, we don’t subscribe to rigid or classical expectations of roles – i.e. acquisition is hyper-focused on improving customer retention and experience.

We Are Focused and Work Without Assumption: We are not beholden to ideas. We have goals and believe everything beyond that is a series of hypotheses to validate. To that end, we seek to work in sequence and not in parallel. We constantly ask ourselves, “what’s the most important hypothesis I should be working on right now? How do I confirm or reject that hypothesis as fast as possible?”. We rarely have timelines/deadlines and are constantly taking in new information and adjusting our priorities accordingly. We don’t expect to be perfect the first time.

How You'll Make An Impact

• Collaborate with Marketing and Supply Chain to identify business needs and manufacturing capabilities.
• Present design recommendations to key stakeholders and drive alignment with key project stakeholders on packaging development direction.
• Collaborate and lead with cross-functional partners and commercialization teams to drive projects forward by researching and developing packaging solutions to meet the consumer and customer’s needs.
• Design and develop packaging solutions that ensure the freshness, safety, and convenience of fresh pet food products utilizing CAD software to create detailed packaging designs and specifications.
• Conduct packaging tests to ensure durability, functionality, and compliance with food safety standards.
• Lead and manage packaging projects from concept through commercialization.
• Develop project plans, timelines, and budgets, ensuring projects are delivered on time and within scope.
• Experience and a deep understanding of production efficiency, capacity planning, and process simplification are essential for this role.
• Ability to develop comprehensive masterplans for sites to support future growth and expansion.
• Proficiency with various filling technologies, case packing systems, and robotic pick-and-place solutions to optimize throughput.
• Skilled in developing strategies for achieving zero defects using inline inspection and scanning equipment.
• Coordinate with internal teams and external suppliers to meet project milestones.
• Identify opportunities to improve packaging processes and materials to enhance efficiency and sustainability.
• Identify and drive cost savings opportunities, looking both at individual component level as well as process improvements and manufacturing efficiency gains.
• Leverage and manage internal and external networks to deliver solutions that meet the packaging requirements, product needs, and consumer experiences.
• Implement Lean, Six Sigma, and other process improvement methodologies to optimize packaging operations.
• Work closely with product development, marketing, production, and quality assurance teams to align packaging solutions with business objectives.
• Facilitate effective communication and collaboration between teams to support packaging innovation and problem-solving.
• Develop and implement sustainable packaging solutions that reduce environmental impact and align with company sustainability goals.
• Ensure all packaging designs comply with relevant food safety standards, industry regulations, and safety guidelines.
• Maintain detailed documentation of packaging designs, test results, and project progress.
• Prepare and present technical reports and recommendations to management and other stakeholders.
• 30-50% domestic travel, or on an as needed basis will be required for this role.

We're Excited About You Because You

• Have a Bachelor’s degree in Packaging Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Design, or a related field. Master’s degree is a plus.
• Have at least 5-8 years of experience in packaging engineering, preferably in the food industry.
• Strong technical and analytical skills.
• Proficiency in CAD software and packaging design tools.
• Excellent problem-solving abilities and a desire to solve big problems.
• Strong project management and organizational skills.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills.
• Knowledge of packaging materials, processes, and sustainability practices, particularly in food packaging
• Are a driver of change management, and will engage stakeholders at all levels to gain buy-in and support for projects
• Have a proven record of driving results through the use of common metrics and data including those with environments of ambiguity
• Lead by example and have a “no task is ever too big or too small for us to all work together and contribute for the collective good” mentality
• Are detail-oriented, organized, and collaborative team player
• Champion the TFD mission, values and culture

Office Guidelines

The office is open and available for all Monday through Friday. We ask all team members to be in office a minimum of 2-3 days a week to build a collaborative and invested environment to foster our unique in-person culture we are proud to have. This office policy is subject to change at company discretion.

Our DEI Philosophy

Our company’s mission is rooted in deep, genuine care for dogs – and for the people who love them. As an organization we are full of individuals who are unique in many ways, but all united in a mission of providing true peace of mind to dog lovers everywhere. Fixing this industry and improving the lives of pets and their people will be a difficult, decades-long endeavor. We believe the best use of our time, energy, and resources as a collective team is to focus on this mission, and on supporting our team to do their best work and be their best selves. In support of this we’re committed to hiring and supporting a diverse workforce, and investing in internal structures, opportunities, hiring/promotions processes, and training that create and sustain an inclusive team. We strive to provide an experience at TFD that will be invested, meaningful and memorable as we progress on the journey to reimagine how we feed and care for our pets.

A Few of Our Best Benefits

• Dog-friendly office in Greenwich Village
• Market-competitive compensation and equity packages
• Comprehensive Healthcare, Dental, and Vision
• Company sponsored mental health benefit and coaching through Modern Health
• 12 week paid parental leave
• Competitive 401k plan with company match
• Flexible PTO
• Discounted fresh food for your pup
• Your pet interrupting video calls (and in-person meetings) is now a feature, not a bug

We commit to building a competitive compensation package and company environment for all individuals to thrive. We believe in competitive base compensation rooted in location specific market data and performance along with equity ownership in the company that allows every team member to build their personal wealth as the company grows, just as much as we believe in fostering a culture that supports our team members personally, professionally, and holistically. For this role the anticipated hiring base compensation range is $160,000 - $170,000 USD Annual and the compensation offered will include a robust market competitive package of base, bonus and equity. In addition to your base compensation offer you will also receive equity ownership in the company. More information about the value of this equity will be shared at the time of offer. This range is representative of NYC Market Data if you are applying to this role outside of the NYC area the range may change.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The Farmer's Dog, Inc. is an equal employment opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic or status. For more information, please visit Know Your Rights.