Head of Product, Innovation

Job Description

Job Description

The job in one line

You own what Dose makes next. Research, development, formulation, food science, and commercialization, from a hunch on a whiteboard to a product 300,000 people drink every morning.

Everyday Dose got here on one hero product. The next chapter is a pipeline: new flavors, new formats, new categories, launched into both a subscription business with real retention mechanics and national retail shelves. The constraint isn't ideas. It's a leader who can take an idea through science, scale-up, and launch without dropping margin, quality, or the date.

That's this job. It is not a brand role and it is not a lab-only role. You own the pipeline and the P&L math behind it.

What you'll actually do

Own the innovation roadmap. Decide what we build, in what order, and why. Use subscription data, consumer research, and retail velocity to place bets, and kill weak concepts early instead of letting them limp to launch.

Run R&D and formulation. Lead benchtop work, sensory, stability, shelf life, and nutritionals. You know why a formula clumps, why it tastes off at month nine, and what it costs to fix. Functional ingredients are the core of this business; efficacy and claims substantiation are yours.

Drive commercialization. Own the stage-gate from concept to first production run. Manage co-manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, and labs. Hit COGS targets, MOQs, and launch dates across DTC and retail, and solve the scale-up problem at 2am when the pilot run doesn't match the bench.

Keep it legal and clean. FDA, FTC, labeling, structure/function claims, cGMP. You partner with quality and legal, but you're the one who knows where the line is before we get near it.

Own the numbers. Margin architecture, launch forecasts, and pipeline value, built with finance from real data, not vibes. Every launch has a business case you'd defend to a board.

Build the team. Lead NPD program management day to day and grow the innovation bench as the pipeline grows.

What success looks like in 90 days

• A prioritized 24-month innovation roadmap the leadership team has signed off on, with business cases behind every slot
• The active pipeline audited: every project has an owner, a gate, a date, and a margin target, and at least one weak concept has been killed
• Co-man and supplier relationships mapped, with the two biggest scale-up or COGS risks identified and a plan against each
• One launch visibly accelerated or de-risked because you got involved

Requirements

What we're looking for

• 8+ years in food and beverage product development , with at least 3 leading an innovation, R&D, or NPD function
• Real formulation chops. You've personally taken powdered beverages, functional foods, or supplements from bench to shelf. You can talk solubility, stability, and sensory without a translator.
• Commercialization scars. You've scaled products through co-manufacturers, engineered costs down, and shipped on dates that mattered. You know the difference between a formula that works and a product that ships.
• Commercial brain. You think in margins, velocities, and repeat rates, not just formulas. A product that converts but doesn't rebuy is a failure, and you build for the rebuy.
• Regulatory fluency. Structure/function claims, labeling, cGMP. You've operated in the functional food and supplement space and kept it clean.
• Backbone. You'll kill a concept the founder loves and tell marketing the claim isn't substantiated. Without drama, with data.
• Startup metabolism. High ambiguity, fast context switching, nothing beneath you. You'll be in the lab, on the co-man floor, and in the boardroom in the same week.
• You use AI tooling daily to move faster on research, analysis, and documentation.

Bonus

• Functional mushroom, adaptogen, or nootropic formulation experience
• You've launched into both DTC subscription and major retail (club and mass especially)
• Degree in food science, chemistry, or nutrition; advanced degree even better
• You've built or scaled an innovation function from scratch

What this role is not

• Not a brand or marketing role. You'll partner with those teams, but you own the product itself.
• Not a pure scientist role that stops at the formula. If it doesn't ship at margin, it doesn't count.
• Not a project manager coordinating other people's decisions. The decisions are yours.

If you want to polish line extensions for a legacy brand, this isn't it, and that's fine.

How to apply

Skip the cover letter. Instead, send us:

1. One page on a product you took from concept to shelf. The original insight, the hardest formulation or scale-up problem you hit, how you solved it, and what the product did commercially after launch.
2. A concept you killed and why. What the data said, who disagreed, and how you made the call stick.
3. Short answer: We want to launch a new functional beverage format within 12 months. Walk us through your first 30 days: what you'd need to know, who you'd talk to, and where you'd expect the plan to break.

We read these carefully. Applications without them won't move forward.

Benefits

Benefits

• Strong base, performance bonus
• Meaningful equity because we want you to own a piece of what you build
• Health benefits + health stipend
• Generous time off
• Free product