Land O'Lakes

R&D Director, Global Dairy Ingredients

Arden Hills, MN (USA) · Director

Sponsorship not specified$188k-$282kDetected 7 hours ago

Supply ChainProcurementLeadershipCollaborationFood Science

About the role

Work Environment - Arden Hills, MN, four days per week in office when not traveling; office, lab, pilot plant, and manufacturing environments.
The salary range for this role is $188,080 - $282,120.
In most cases, candidates offered employment can expect to be hired at a pay rate near the middle of our salary ranges.

Lead end-to-end B2B product development across dairy-based seasonings and ingredients, dairy protein powders, and GDI commodity ingredients.
Represent R&D as the senior technical partner in strategic customer engagements, co-development sessions, product demonstrations, qualification reviews, and issue resolution.
Own the GDI product development strategy and roadmap, translating commercial strategy, customer segmentation, and manufacturing realities into clearly prioritized technical work.
Build technical roadmaps for high-value dairy proteins, commodity ingredient optimization, dairy-based seasoning systems, and emerging customer applications.
Lead, coach, and develop managers, scientists, technologists, and technical contributors
Create role clarity, decision rights, development plans, and succession plans to build leadership depth and technical bench strength for the GDI platform.

Demonstrated ability to manage complex portfolios, lead cross-functional teams, prioritize competing work, and make sound decisions under time pressure.
Work Environment
Arden Hills, MN, four days per week in office when not traveling
office, lab, pilot plant, and manufacturing environments. Travel estimated at 10-35%.
The salary range for this role is $188,080 - $282,120. In most cases, candidates offered employment can expect to be hired at a pay rate near the middle of our salary ranges.
Land O'Lakes does not use Automated Decision-Making Technology, as defined by California law, to substantially replace human decision-making or make significant decisions about applications for employment or contracting opportunities.
About Land O'Lakes, Inc.
Join us and be part of a Fortune 250, farmer- and member-owned cooperative that is reimagining the business of food. We have been named a Top Workplace by Indeed and LinkedIn, and to the TIME 100 Most Influential Companies list.
We provide a broad portfolio of benefits to keep you and your family at your best. Land O'Lakes is Where Your Future Takes Root.

Ensure technical solutions are scalable, manufacturable, repeatable, compliant, and aligned with customer expectations, product specifications, and business value.
Make resource and priority tradeoffs visible
set clear expectations for technical rigor, customer responsiveness, and execution discipline.
Serve as the escalation point for technical risk, prioritization, customer-impacting issues, and commercialization tradeoffs.
Champion improved tools, templates, data practices, stage-gate discipline, and knowledge capture to increase speed, consistency, and R&D effectiveness.
M.S. in Food Science, Dairy Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, or related field required
Ph.D. and/or MBA preferred.
15+ years of progressive R&D, product development, and technical leadership experience in food, dairy, or ingredients.

balance urgent customer needs with foundational learning and longer-term capability building.
Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, inclusion, continuous improvement, learning, and disciplined documentation.

If you need to submit a reasonable accommodation request to complete the employment

This listing is sourced directly from Land O'Lakes's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.