Senior Director, Product Development & Innovation

New York City, NY

Little Spoon was founded on the belief that today’s parents are different – equal parts more time-strapped and more food-savvy than ever. We set out to disrupt a century-old category with products and an experience that deliver on what the modern parent deserves. And we’re at a very exciting growth stage— we’re the #1 DTC baby and kids food brand in the US, and recently made a big foray into retail (nationwide at Target) this fall!

We’re looking for a strategic and execution‑minded Senior Director, Product Development & Innovation to lead our R&D team and own the rapid development, testing, and commercialization of Little Spoon’s product roadmap. This role is perfect for an experienced, entrepreneurial food R&D leader who thrives in a fast‑paced environment — comfortable moving between hands‑on formulation work, strategic product development, people management, and cross‑functional leadership.

You’ll own Little Spoon’s end‑to‑end product innovation lifecycle, ensuring we deliver exceptional, nutritious, best‑in‑class products for babies, toddlers, and kids across our rapidly expanding DTC and retail footprint. You’ll manage a team of high performing food scientists and packaging engineers, and partner closely with FSQA, Operations, Brand, and Retail to accelerate our roadmap, scale innovation systems, and power Little Spoon’s next chapter of category‑defining growth.

You’ll be an essential leader in shaping the future of Little Spoon’s product portfolio across refrigerated, frozen and ambient food formats and execute on a multi‑year product roadmap with dozens of projects. This role is for someone who wants to create the future of kids’ food — pairing culinary creativity with science and scale. You’ll build products that meaningfully improve children’s health and reshape how modern families feed their kids.

This role reports to our Co‑Founder and Chief Product Officer.

• Lead, mentor, and develop Little Spoon’s R&D team, developing best‑in‑class capabilities across formulation, sensory, culinary, packaging, and process development.
• Own the full technical development lifecycle across all DTC and Retail products from concept through commercialization
• Serve as the technical steward of Little Spoon’s culinary point of view, nutritional philosophy, and ingredient standards.
• Partner with Food Safety & Regulatory to ensure all new products meet Little Spoon’s rigorous quality and compliance standards.
• Partner with the Director of Portfolio, Innovation & GTM Strategy to prioritize and translate innovation briefs into fully realized, technically viable product concepts.
• Manage all formulation work streams — from rapid prototyping to iterative testing, reformulations, sensory evaluations, and ongoing quality optimization.
• Own budget management, documentation, specs, SOPs, testing plans, and ingredient library.

• Partner closely with the Director of Portfolio, Innovation & GTM Strategy who owns roadmap definition, positioning, and innovation strategy, and the Director of Consumer Insights
• Provide early feasibility assessments, technical guardrails, ingredient considerations, and formulation routes during concept development.
• Collaborate on claims validation, competitive landscape reviews, and ingredient / nutritional differentiation.
• Align early with Marketing and GTM teams to ensure technical decisions support positioning, claims, packaging needs, and customer‑facing storytelling.
• Ensure seamless product handoff to GTM teams at the completion of foundational development stages.
• Own technical commercialization, working with Ops, Supply Chain, and external partners to bring product and packaging prototypes into scalable production.
• Interface directly with co‑manufacturers, suppliers, and ingredient partners to ensure reliability, product consistency, and cost feasibility.
• Collaborate with Retail Sales to adapt or develop products specifically for in‑store category requirements, retailer needs, and velocity expectations.
• Work with Finance to evaluate COGS, identify cost‑reduction opportunities, and ensure margin targets align…