External Manufacturing Manager

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

The External Manufacturing Manager will be responsible for the quality, customer service, inventory, finished goods' production, material planning, cost control, cost reduction, and vendor relations at The Farmer's Dog's contract manufacturing facilities. In this role you'll participate in building a resilient manufacturing network within our outstanding, mission-focused Operations team.

How You'll Make An Impact

• Drive projects on key manufacturing projects, e.g., new product introduction, product renovation, rationalization of facilities.

• Ongoing maintenance: Establish and report critical metrics for co-manufacturers on quality, food safety, customer service, and financial reporting.

• Develop and implement strategies to improve performance. Conduct regular Operational Improvement reviews with Contract Manufacturers to improve production efficiency and reduce production cost.

• Analyze manufacturing standard methodologies within facilities and look to implement these practices into the key strategic Contract Manufacturers.

• Continuous Improvement: Serve as the primary function for achieving and recording operational savings at Contract Manufacturer facilities.

• Provide focus and coordination to resolving immediate business issues (i.e. product going on hold, or other significant unusual occurrences). Handles inventory discrepancies and claims for excess losses or supplier issues between Contract Manufacturer and Corporate functions to control costs and ensure quick resolution of outstanding issues.

• Benchmark key competitive and food industry datasets for new technology and efficiency strategies.

• Capital: Engage business partners and establish a communication flow across all functional groups in the management of the capital strategy goals.

• Support Product Commercialization and Scale: Support projects through execution to ensure specifications are established prior to production and all parameters are achieved during the qualification, verification, and commercialization steps. Ensure adequate technical representation (Quality, R&D, and Procurement) is present during all project phases.

• Teamwork: Collaborate closely with the Operations function for internal manufacturing to align with TFD's manufacturing strategy to improve the alignment between Contract Manufacturing, Marketing, R&D, Quality, Manufacturing, Procurement, and Logistic departments.

• Work with the Procurement function to help develop manufacturing and capacity strategies that are consistent with the current and future marketing strategies.

We're Excited About You Because

• You have 7+ years in the human frozen food industry.

• You are skilled in plant operations management, engineering, supply chain, distribution, consulting, and/or procurement experience, preferred.

• You have experience in MS Office (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and Access) and Google Docs (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms).

• You possess outstanding project management, problem-solving skills, and the ability to think creatively.

• You have a desire to approach work as a continuous learning opportunity.

• You're experienced with negotiation and contract manufacturing development, preferred.

• Must be okay with up to 30-50 percent work related travel.

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 sponsored mental health benefit and coaching through Modern Health
• 12 week paid parental leave
• Competitive 401k plan with company match
• Flexible PTO and hybrid work policy
• 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 $100,000 - $110,000 USD 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.

#LI-MF1 #LI-hybrid