Senior Product Developer

Our client in the food industry in Mississauga, ON is looking for a Senior Product Developer (NPD & Commercialization) to join their growing team.

The Senior Product Developer (NPD & Commercialization) is a senior technical and leadership role responsible for owning the execution of product development and commercialization activities from concept through launch. This position serves as the operational lead within R&D, ensuring that products are designed for manufacturability, packaging, compliance, and scale-up, and are fully ready for production at the time of launch.

Reporting to the Director of R&D, this role acts as a key bridge between R&D, Operations, QA, Supply Chain, Packaging, Sales, and Finance. The position is accountable for translating innovation and customer requirements into commercially viable, scalable, and production-ready products, while enforcing disciplined stage-gate execution, robust documentation, and strong cross-functional alignment.

This role is suited for a highly organized, hands-on product development professional with strong commercialization experience and demonstrated leadership capability, who can support and guide others while remaining deeply involved in technical execution.

Advantages

• Competitive salary and company benefits

• Opportunities for professional learning, development, and growth

• Working with a fun, exciting, and supportive team

Responsibilities
Product Development & Commercialization Leadership

• Own the execution of product development and commercialization projects, ensuring clear scope, timelines, responsibilities, and deliverables from concept through launch.

• Lead products through all development stages, including bench-top development, feasibility trials, plant trials, and first production.

• Ensure products are technically and operationally ready for launch, with validated formulations, processes, packaging, specifications, and documentation.

• Review and validate formulations, ingredients, and nutritional information to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, clean label standards, and customer and market expectations.

• Partner with QA, Regulatory, and Supply Chain to ensure ingredient selections meet functional, nutritional, labeling, and cost targets throughout development and commercialization.

• Proactively identify technical, operational, packaging, supply, and compliance risks and drive mitigation plans early in the development cycle.

Scale-Up, Launch Readiness & Stage-Gate Discipline

• Lead and enforce stage-gate discipline, ensuring projects meet defined readiness criteria before progressing.

• Partner with Operations to ensure products are designed for manufacturability on existing and new production lines.

• Plan, coordinate, and lead production trials, and support first productions, ensuring structured execution, clear ownership, and documented outcomes.

• Ensure learnings from trials are captured, documented, and incorporated into final product designs, formulations, and specifications.

Packaging Design & Commercial Integration

• Own R&D input into packaging design and commercialization, ensuring packaging solutions are fit for product performance, shelf life, food safety, line efficiency, and customer requirements.

• Lead packaging selection and development in collaboration with Operations, QA, Supply Chain, and external packaging suppliers.

• Ensure packaging solutions are compatible with line capabilities, automation, case packing, palletization, and distribution requirements.

• Support development and validation of packaging specifications, packaging BOMs, and packaging-related SOPs.

• Identify packaging-related risks early and ensure testing and validation during feasibility trials, plant trials, and first productions.

Cross-Functional Coordination & Stakeholder Management

• Act as the primary R&D interface for Operations, QA, Supply Chain, Packaging, Finance, and Sales on commercialization projects.

• Ensure cross-functional alignment on timelines, costs, capacity, and launch readiness.

• Support customer-facing initiatives by providing technical input, feasibility assessments, and execution plans.

• Partner with Finance and Supply…