Manager, Product, GDI

Location(s):

United States of America

City/Cities:

Atlanta

Travel Required:

00% - 25%

Relocation Provided:

No

Job Posting End Date:

March 30, 2026

Shift:

Job Description Summary:

Location: Atlanta

Our North America Innovation Center sits at the heart of The Coca-Cola Company’s next chapter of growth. We are committed to transforming and evolving our organization and ambitions — bringing our people closer to the consumer, continuously raising the bar, and embracing digitalization to enable sustainable growth.

We are looking for a highly driven individual contributor who thrives on ownership and impact, and who fuels the innovation pipeline with bold ideas that translate into real-world results. This role is not about maintaining the status quo; it is about challenging assumptions, unlocking opportunity, and personally driving valuable breakthrough innovation.

You will apply deep product development expertise to lead ideas from concept to execution, contributing to a strong and diverse portfolio of meaningful innovation — accelerating growth and helping shape the future of the organization.

Job Purpose Summary

As a Manager, Product Development, you will lead the execution of complex and diverse product development initiatives to accelerate bottom- and top-line growth, bringing concepts to life through advanced formulation, testing, and commercialization. You will drive local and regional projects in close partnership with cross-functional teams, applying deep technical expertise, market insights, and digital tools to ensure products meet consumer expectations, quality standards, regulatory requirements, and manufacturing realities. This is a hands-on, individual contributor role for a seasoned problem-solver who thrives on technical ownership, cross-functional collaboration, and delivering high-impact beverage innovations.

What You’ll Do

• Product Design - Work as part of functional team to align on objective (new product launch, superiority, tax and regulation, productivity) and success criteria.
• Create Prototypes & Formulations – Develop lab-scale recipes driven by consumer insights and technical/supply chain requirements, following GMP and company protocols. Incorporate local insights, new ingredients, and regulatory needs into final product design.
• Test, Learn, Improve – Conduct sensory, analytical, and shelf-life testing together with the Micro and stability teams; use data and basic statistics to guide optimization.
• Scale Up for Market – Lead support from GDI for pilot and commercial production trials, ensuring processes and packaging compatibility.
• Collaborate Broadly - Partner with Marketing, SRA, Supply Chain, Packaging, and Quality for seamless delivery; connect with global technical experts to import best practices.
• Maintain Excellence – Over the full process, keep lab equipment in top condition; follow safety, compliance, and documentation standards.

What You’ll Need

• Bachelor’s/Master’s in Food Science, Chemistry, Nutrition, Chemical Engineering, or similar.
• 4–6 years in product development for beverages/food
• Strong technical understanding of ingredient functionality within beverage systems. 
• Experience managing multiple projects from ideation to launch in fast-paced environments. 
• Familiarity with sensory evaluation, consumer testing, and data interpretation for decision-making. 
• Ability to: 
  • Think end-to-end across initiatives and influences priorities aligned with strategy. 
  • Apply and influence with insights from consumer and competitor.
  • Drive original thinking and develops novel concepts with clear business value.
  • Apply solid technical expertise to deliver high-quality work independently.
  • Solve complex, ambiguous problems and anticipates downstream impacts.
  • Coach and support others, sharing expertise and constructive feedback.
  • Make timely decisions within scope, balancing speed, and quality, and in consideration of interdependence of other priorities. 
• Fluent in English; regional languages a plus.
• Regional travel up to 10–15%.

The Coca-Cola Company will not offer sponsorship for employment status (including, but not limited to, H1-B visa status and other employment-based nonimmigrant visas) for this position. Accordingly, all applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis and must not require The Coca-Cola Company's sp