Senior Meat Scientist

Who We Are

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.

#LongLiveDogs

What We Stand For and Where You'll Come In

The Product Development department is responsible for developing products from concept to commercialization, focusing on developing recipes that are nutritious for dogs. We’re looking to bring on our first-ever  Senior Meat Scientist who will play a critical role in delivering excellence in product design to ensure flavor, functionality and innovation. This role would partner both internally and externally to help with meat block formulation & blending of new and existing products to improve consistency and reduce overall cost.

One Team: We don’t think of ourselves as “Acquisition Marketers”, “Engineers”, “Data Analysts”, or “Product Managers”. Beyond denoting skill sets and areas of expertise, we don’t think departments matter. We’d rather align ourselves to the goals we’re working to achieve and make sure we have necessary subject matter expertise to drive meaningful impact. We strive to orient ourselves around customer problems TOGETHER – getting the right people, with the right context, in the right rooms/Zooms to solve problems holistically.

We are skeptical about everything and precious about nothing:  Ideas can and should come from anywhere, and we aren’t tied to our own. We proactively source input. We talk to our customers and leads regularly and are quick to change course if we know there’s a better or more impactful way to solve problems.

We consider the customer journey in all of our decisions:  We know that no interaction exists in a silo and therefore understand how important every single one is.  We ensure our strategy sets prospective and new customers up for success and drives long-term retention.  We answer questions and address problems early and proactively.  We understand the value of different channels, initiatives, and messages and know how to articulate impact and advocate for prioritization holistically.

We Execute For Impact: We don’t subscribe to “best practices” or “industry KPIs”. We’re uninterested in how we compare to “benchmarks”; instead we orient ourselves around being the best we can possibly be. Similarly, we don’t subscribe to rigid or classical expectations of roles – i.e. acquisition is hyper-focused on improving customer retention and experience.

We Are Focused and Work Without Assumption: We are not beholden to ideas. We have goals and believe everything beyond that is a series of hypotheses to validate. To that end, we seek to work in sequence and not in parallel. We constantly ask ourselves, “what’s the most important hypothesis I should be working on right now? How do I confirm or reject that hypothesis as fast as possible?”. We rarely have timelines/deadlines and are constantly taking in new information and adjusting our priorities accordingly. We don’t expect to be perfect the first time.

How You'll Make An Impact

• Develop food products that deliver on quality, cost, and commercialization expectations
• Lead decisions on meat block formulation and the blending of new and existing products, including aspects of taste, texture, water binding, etc.
• Agility in delivering exceptional product quality with a sense of urgency with high quality output is essential to the success of this position
• Apply an advanced understanding of ingredient functionality in proteins and processing for optimal product development
• Present innovative product concepts and inspire the organization on how we can improve our recipes 
• Work closely with Food Safety & Regulatory teams to ensure all regulatory, nutritional, labeling goals are achieved through development
• Collaborate with Commercialization, Operations, and Supplier teams to ensure an efficient translation of product formulas to TFD production facilities
• Acquire and apply new industry ingredient and equipment technologies
• Educate internal and external partners on food trends, technologies, and processes especially in the meat industry
• Act as a leader and ambassador for Product Development, R&D, and TFD

• 50% travel required to production facilities and customer presentations

We're Excited About You Because

• You have 8+ years of protein product development and commercialization experience, including an advanced degree in Meat Science or a related field (Pet Food Industry experience or education is a plus!)
• You're a skilled communicator and have the ability to absorb and distill complexity into simple terms to drive decision making.
• You are detail-oriented and proactive, you thrive as a self-starter and excel in managing multiple projects simultaneously.
• You are an owner, have excellent problem-solving skills and can prioritize tasks effectively
• You are able to build strong cross-functional relationships, effectively facilitate discussions and drive consensus
• You have a strong sense of curiosity and looking to always continuously improve with new ideas, staying up to date with industry trends 
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong presentation skills to internal and external customers
• Adaptability and flexibility to focus quickly on changing situations and objectives
• Attention to detail, organization, and solutions oriented are all keys to success
• Comfortable learning new data management systems.  
• You love dogs.

Office Guidelines

The office is open and available for all Monday through Friday. We ask all team members to be in office a minimum of 2 - 3 days a week to build a collaborative and invested environment to foster our unique in-person culture we are proud to have. This office policy is subject to change at company discretion.

Our DEI Philosophy:

Our company’s mission is rooted in deep, genuine care for dogs – and for the people who love them. As an organization we are full of individuals who are unique in many ways, but all united in a mission of providing true peace of mind to dog lovers everywhere. Fixing this industry and improving the lives of pets and their people will be a difficult, decades-long endeavor. We believe the best use of our time, energy, and resources as a collective team is to focus on this mission, and on supporting our team to do their best work and be their best selves. In support of this we’re committed to hiring and supporting a diverse workforce, and investing in internal structures, opportunities, hiring/promotions processes, and training that create and sustain an inclusive team. We strive to provide an experience at TFD that will be invested, meaningful and memorable as we progress on the journey to reimagine how we feed and care for our pets.

A Few of Our Best Benefits

• Dog-friendly office in Greenwich Village
• Market-competitive compensation and equity packages
• Comprehensive Healthcare, Dental, and Vision
• Company supported mental health benefits
• 12 week paid parental leave
• Competitive 401k plan with company match
• Flexible PTO 
• Discounted fresh food for your pup
• Your pet interrupting video calls (and in-person meetings) is now a feature, not a bug

We commit to building a competitive compensation package and company environment for all individuals to thrive. We believe in competitive base compensation rooted in location specific market data and performance along with equity ownership in the company that allows every team member to build their personal wealth as the company grows, just as much as we believe in fostering a culture that supports our team members personally, professionally, and holistically. For this role the anticipated hiring base compensation range is $130,000 - $155,000USD Annual and the compensation offered will include a robust market competitive package of base and equity. In addition to your base compensation offer you will also receive equity ownership in the company. More information about the value of this equity will be shared at the time of offer. This range is representative of NYC Market Data if you are applying to this role outside of the NYC area the range may change.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The Farmer's Dog, Inc. is an equal employment opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic or status. For more information, please visit Know Your Rights.