Manager, Process, GDI

Location(s): United States of America

City/Cities: Atlanta

Travel Required: 0% - 25%

Relocation Provided: No

Job Posting End Date: March 13, 2026

Our NA Innovation Center sit 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 process 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.

The Process Development Manager is a critical technical leader within our Operating Unit, responsible for guiding the design, optimization, and commercialization of beverage processes that deliver superior quality, efficiency, and scalability. This role unlocks innovation by ensuring our future‑back and present‑forward product ideas can be manufactured reliably and cost‑effectively, both in the pilot plant and across bottling partner facilities.

Operating as an individual contributor with system‑wide influence, the Process Manager partners closely with global GDI, bottlers, suppliers, and cross‑functional teams to deploy the right technologies, troubleshoot challenges, accelerate commercialization, and strengthen digital and simulation capabilities for the future.

• Provide expert guidance on process design from concept through commercialization, ensuring manufacturing feasibility, product stability, quality, and regulatory compliance.
• Translate future‑back innovation (new ingredients, formats, technologies) into clear process requirements and manufacturing pathways.
• Anticipate and solve complex technical barriers - formulation, mixing, thermal/aseptic processes, filling, CIP/SIP, and shelf‑life performance - to enable first‑time‑right launches.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, optimize, or modernize processes to enhance efficiency, sustainability, and product quality.

• Act as the key technical interface between GDI and our bottling partners, ensuring the right process design, equipment capability, and validation steps are in place.
• Support scale‑up, line trials, commissioning, and troubleshooting to ensure smooth commercialization of new products and packaging formats.
• Provide clear, practical technical guidance to bottlers to ensure consistency, compliance, and high‑quality performance across the system.

• Support the Process Director in shaping the long‑term pilot plant strategy, capability roadmap, and technology investment priorities.
• Lead the technical aspects of pilot plant process design, trials, and scale‑up programs.
• Play a central role in CAPEX planning related to process technology, equipment upgrades, and layout optimization.
• Fully own pilot‑plant vendor and supplier management for project scopes (solution alignment, technical evaluation, negotiations, installation, commissioning, performance assessment).

• Lead the advancement of digital process capabilities, including virtual modelling, digital twins, line simulation, predictive analytics, and DOE‑driven process optimization.
• Apply digital tools to accelerate learning cycles, reduce trial costs, strengthen risk assessment, and improve decision quality.
• Help establish digital best practices and build foundational capability across the R&D technical community.

• Provide rapid, science‑based troubleshooting for manufacturing issues in bottler plants and the pilot plant -…