VP of Technical Operations

VP of Technical Operations 

*Location NYC

Who We Are

The Farmer’s Dog is the fastest growing pet health service company in the US, and was born from a mission to change the landscape of pet health, providing dogs and their humans with honest, smart, and simple care – a fresh proposition in an industry riddled with manipulative and misleading marketing. We’re starting by radically improving the $100 billion pet food market, replacing bulk bags of highly processed pellets with a personalized subscription service that sends healthy, freshly-made dog food, balanced by top veterinary nutritionists, directly to customers’ doors. Our ultimate goal is to create innovative, honest, and delightful experiences across all aspects of pet care, and we believe our direct-to-consumer business model, holistic approach to growth, and dynamic and forward-thinking culture uniquely position us to shepherd this backwards industry into the future. 

To date, The Farmer’s Dog has delivered hundreds of millions of 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 our customers, health to their companions, and much-needed change to the way people feed and care for their pets.

#LongLiveDogs

Where You'll Come In

We’re looking for a VP of Technical Operations who is passionate about discovering, developing, and implementing complex technical solutions across different product categories, exceeding our customers’ expectations. The ideal candidate will be responsible for building and leading a high-performing technical team by effectively managing the processes of hiring, training, and coaching. This role requires a proactive leader who is passionate about technology and committed to fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment.

This position reports to the Chief Supply Chain Officer directly responsible for process, packaging engineering, and commercialization for the pet food product line. The company currently produces in 8 co-manufacturing facilities but has plans to build its own manufacturing site.In this role you will lead TFD’s engineering strategies for multiple product categories, successfully identifying, developing, and implementing business growth and productivity projects as well as technology programs across manufacturing and distribution networks.

You will own and lead a portfolio of business-critical projects following a disciplined engineering approach from concept definition to vertical start-up, including technology identification, validation, machine reliability analysis, new line design, modifications of existing assets, and developing robust technical solutions to address a range of complex manufacturing issues. You will also identify breakthrough technologies and operational solutions that will bring our business categories to the future.You will also analyze ways to maximize efficiency and yields, optimize manufacturing costs, own capital expenditure, project management, equipment evaluation, operation performance improvement, start-up, and new process validation.

How You'll Make An Impact

• Lead the discovery, development, qualification, and successful operational implementation of manufacturing technologies and breakthrough technical solutions to drive business growth and gross margin improvement across multiple product categories.
• Lead the justification, establishment, and implementation of capital projects from inception through completion. Initiate technical concepts, develop designs incorporating the optimal technical solutions, estimate and manage costs, formulate justifications, coordinate project/program executions, support line startups, and establish systems to train required personnel on new technologies.
• Lead standard engineering work processes and champion the best engineering practices for improved performance. Analyze with manufacturing teams and other functions the operational performance impacts of new equipment or equipment modifications across current operations.
• Effectively lead, develop, and allocate resources across a team of talented engineers to identify viable project opportunities, and properly validate and implement breakthrough technical in-plant solutions.
• Closely collaborate with R&D Process & Packaging, Quality Assurance, Safety, Information Systems, Manufacturing, and Business Unit Teams among other functions on the definition of technology solutions and standardization opportunities across our product categories.
• Participate in business category, operational, R&D, and Engineering projects and business reviews as required. Communicate and inform operational and business leaders of related work through scheduling,