Sr Engineer, R&D - Design & Innovation

Job Purpose  

​​As the Design & Innovation Packaging Engineer,​ you will support innovative and disruptive packaging design initiatives that will be instrumental in delivering novel, competitively advantaged solutions across the Kraft Heinz North America portfolio. The team’s 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 of platformable pkg 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 packaging projects 

Essential Functions & Responsibilities  

• ​​​Support execution of Design & Innovation initiatives, addressing technical and design hurdles, driving speed to market and enabling competitive advantage. 

• ​Manage initiatives with different 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 budgets and build business cases for project execution. 

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

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

• ​Contribute to knowledge sharing and capability building by documenting learnings, creating technical summaries, and supporting training content.  

• ​Partner with cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., Innovation, Process, Platform Packaging) to translate requirements into testable material/package options and to support handover to business units.​​ 

People Management Responsibilities 

• Individual Contributor 

Key Outputs & Deliverables  

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

• Support design initiatives that address innovation, sustainability and value engineering, from concept through proof of concept and handover support, meeting committed timelines and performance targets for assigned responsibilities. 

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

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

• Supporting designs that help avoid material bans and regulatory risks 

• Supporting recyclable, reusable, and compliant packaging formats aligned with enterprise sustainability goals and legislative requirements 

• Contribute to packaging designs delivered 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. 

• ​4-5+ years of R&D packaging development and commercialization experience, with innovation and packaging design experience and project leadership experience (consumer goods, food & beverage, pharma or similar preferred). 

• ​Working design knowledge of materials (flexibles, rigids, fiber, etc), formats, converting processes (e.g., cartoning, filling, web handling, labeling, molding), printing, bottle closure and dispensing systems and manufacturing constraints.  

• ​Working knowledge of project execution practices (e.g., timelines, risk identification, stakeholder updates) and ability to manage assigned deliverables. 

• ​Demonstrated ability to support end-to-end development and launch activities, including planning/ performing experiments, documenting results, and coordinating with cross-functional partners. 

• ​Knowledge of packaging design and innovation, DVF (Desirability, Viability, Feasibility) a plus 

• ​Effective communication and interpersonal skills; ability to work with cross-functional partners and external suppliers. 

• ​Industrial design experience for packaging materials, shapes, formats, with proven examples of commercialized innovations across different packaging formats a plus 

• ​Knowledge of translating consumer insights, consumer Jobs-to-be-done, and market trends into packaging design strategies  

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

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

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

Work Environment & Schedule 

This position operates primarily 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 demands include but not limited to 

• ​​Regular office work 

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