Director, Packaging

Overview

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.

• Set the strategic direction for packaging across The Farmer’s Dog’s full product portfolio — including current formats and new formats as the business expands into new categories and channels.
• Own the packaging roadmap: prioritize initiatives, align stakeholders, and ensure the team is focused on the highest-impact work at every stage of growth.
• Define and build scalable packaging engineering standards — qualification protocols, print approval processes, retained sample programs, shelf-life testing frameworks, and supplier quality requirements.
• Drive design recommendations backed by competitive benchmarking, consumer insight, and technical rigor; make the call when tradeoffs arise and align the organization on direction.
• Proactively identify and resolve risks across the packaging portfolio — materials performance, print quality, regulatory compliance, retailer requirements — before they reach production or market.
• Lead packaging trials and validation runs at co-manufacturers and suppliers; own technical outcomes and ensure findings are clearly documented and communicated to leadership.
• Build and manage strong relationships with external packaging suppliers, print vendors, and contract manufacturers — driving accountability for quality, cost, and timeline.
• Partner with Operations and Supply Chain to align on production windows, material lead times, and inventory requirements across launches and ongoing production.
• Ensure all packaging meets food safety, regulatory, and retailer requirements for every format and channel we sell through.

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing packaging engineering team — setting clear goals, providing direct and caring feedback, and creating a culture of technical excellence and ownership.
• Be opinionated on team structure, talent needs, and capability gaps as the portfolio grows; recruit top technical talent and advocate for the resources needed to win.
• Mentor engineers on technical skills, project ownership, and cross-functional communication — developing the next generation of packaging leaders at The Farmer’s Dog.

• Partner at a senior level with Product Development, Brand, Creative, Quality, Operations, and Supply Chain — serving as the packaging function’s voice in strategic decisions.
• Translate complex technical constraints into clear, confident recommendations for non-technical stakeholders and executive leadership.
• Represent the packaging function in stage gate reviews, executive updates, and cross-functional forums — ensuring leadership has the visibility they need without having to ask for it.
• Maintain thorough documentation of designs, test results, and project milestones to support traceability, knowledge sharing, and regulatory compliance.
• Apply Lean Six Sigma principles and continuous improvement tools to drive efficiency and consistency in packaging operations.
• Identify opportunities to improve materials, processes, and supplier performance — for better cost, sustainability, and production efficiency.
• Champi…