Principal Engineer, R&D Design & Innovation

Job Purpose

As theDesign & InnovationPackagingEngineeryou willidentifyleadanddriveinnovative and disruptive packaging design initiatives that will be instrumental in delivering novel competitively advantaged solutions across the Kraft Heinz North America portfolio.The teams objective is to deliver packaging design strategies translating brand strategies and consumer Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) into viable design solutions to meet growth innovation and sustainability objectives.The objective of the role is to support development ofplatformablepkg innovation solutions across brands and categories to fuel sustainable BU innovation pipelines. You will partner with the Innovation Process and Platform packaging teams as well as cross functional stakeholders to translate consumer insights and sustainability requirements into commercially viable manufacturable solutions. The role includes identifying packaging design solutions leveraging external design partners and internal consumer experience teams to translate insights into viable designs that resonate with consumers. The ideal candidate combines technical packaging commercialization expertise with design and innovation knowledge and experience managing designand/or innovationprojects.

Essential Functions & Responsibilities

• Leadexecution ofDesign & Innovationinitiativesaddressing technical and design hurdles driving speed to market and enabling competitive advantage.

• Manage multiple initiatives with complex scopes and/or cross enterprise platforms concurrently

• Partner with legal to build robust IP strategies to drive competitive advantage

• Develop and maintain detailed project plans schedules and budgetsand build business cases for project execution.

• Work directly interface and influence cross-functional team (Marketing Procurement Operations and Supply Chain) and vendors.

• Supportpkg design/technology award submissions with external sponsors working with R&D platform teams and suppliers to build submissions for leadership/comms/marketing alignment

• Apply Design of Experiments (DoE) statistics and problem-solving practicesto research development and validation work.

• Support prototyping development for consumer testingand assist with pilot line setup and scale-up to industrial production as required to enable commercialization.

• Contribute to knowledge sharing and capability buildingby documenting learnings creating technical summaries and supporting training content or informal coaching as needed.

People Management Responsibilities

• Individual Contributor

Key Outputs & Deliverables

• Contribute to execution of the design strategy and supporting pipeline build for North America portfolio

• Deliver against design initiatives to address innovation sustainability and value engineeringfrom concept through proof of concept and handover support meeting committed timelines and performance targets for assigned responsibilities.

• Support compliance with sustainability and regulatory requirementsby incorporating requirements into design recommendations including:

• MinimizingExtended Producer Responsibility (EPR)fee impacts (as applicable to design choices)

• Supporting designs that help avoidmaterial bans and regulatory risks

• Supportingrecyclable reusable and compliantpackaging formats aligned with enterprise sustainability goals and legislative requirements

• Support delivery of packaging designs to Performance-Based Specifications (PBS)to meet defined functional quality shelf-life consumer experience and manufacturing performance outcomes.

Expected Experience & Required Skills

• BS/MS/PhD degree in Design Engineering Packaging Engineering preferred or related discipline.

• 6 years of R&D packaging development and commercialization experience with significant innovation and packaging design experience and project leadership experience (consumer goods food & beverage pharma or similar preferred).

• Workingdesignknowledge ofmaterials (flexibles rigids fiberetc) formats converting processes (e.g.cartoning filling web handling labeling molding) printing bottle closure and dispensing systems and manufacturing constraints.

• Demonstrated ability to support end-to-end developmentand launchactivitiesfor packaging complex projects including planning/performingtesting documenting results and coordinating with cross-functional partners.

• Workingknowledge of packaging design and innovation DVF (Desirability Viability Feasibility) experience a plus

• Excellent communication negotiation and interpersonal skills; ability to influence at all levels.

• Industrial design experience for packaging materials shapes formats with proven examples of commercialized innovations across multiple packaging formats

• Knowledge of sustainable packaging solutions material/package industry standards and regulations (as applicable to rigid plastic packaging development work).

• Skilled at directing consumer insights for packaging

• Skilled at translating consumer insights consumer Jobs-to-be-done and market trends into packaging design strategies

• Ability to support pilot line activities and scale-up toindustrial production as required.

• Willingness and ability to travel up to 25% of the time.

Work Environment & Scheduleisposition operatesprimarily in a hybrid work environment and is based at the Kraft Heinz R&D Innovation Center in Glenview IL. Our hybrid model provides flexibility based on business needs allowing employees to work virtually up to two days per week with an expectation to work on-site at least three days per week at the Glenview Innovation Center (Glenview IL).

Physical demandsinclude butnotlimited to

• Regular office work

• Physical presence at labs and manufacturing sites (internal and external) to perform experimental and validation testing

This job description is not designed to cover or contain all duties or responsibilities that are required of the role. Duties or responsibilities may change or be added with or without notice.