Product Developer

Function: R & D

Location:Darmstadt, HE, DE

Work Arrangement: On-site

Position Title

(Sr) Product Developer, Product Development R&D

Location

Darmstadt, Frankfurt Area, Germany

Reports to

Associate Director, Product Development R&D

Direct Reports

Scope / Brands

Upstream Innovation Care / x-brands

ABOUT THE WELLA COMPANY

Wella Company is one of the world's leading beauty companies, comprised of a family of iconic brands such as Wella Professionals, Clairol, OPI, Nioxin and ghd. With 6,000 employees globally, presence in over 100 countries, Wella Company and its brands enable consumers to look, feel, and be their true selves. As innovators in the hair and nail industry, Wella Company empowers its people to delight consumers, inspire beauty professionals, engage communities, and deliver sustainable growth to its stakeholders.

For additional information about the Wella Company please visit

ABOUT R&D

Research & Development in Wella Company is a highly collaborative, competent and innovative group. You join a diverse teams of highly passionate Scientists, Engineers and Hair and Nail Artists who innovate at the forefront of technology and beauty trends. We:

• Deliver end-to-end innovation through an empowered learning culture, exploring, developing and qualifying innovations that delight consumers.
• Innovate and bring to life the future of the company, guided by deep consumer research and trends that will grow our industry long term.
• Keep safety, sustainability, quality and regulatory always front and center of our work.

We want you to join our R&D family for an exciting journey of innovation that will propel the Wella Company to new heights

THE ROLE

This R&D Product Developer position will be within the R&D Care & Styling Innovation Creation / Upstream team, supporting the rapid growth of our global Care business.

The classic task of a Product Developer is to translate stylists & consumer needs into technical benefits. By monitoring consumer & stylist behavior as well as the competitive landscape and trends & movements we identify opportunities for winning innovation. Product & service prototyping and benefit demonstration and visualization are core work areas, complemented by thorough technical documentation.

In this role you will be closely collaborating with all R&D functions to build deep technical understanding and develop solutions that fuel new ingredients and product innovation for our professional and retail hair care and styling brands.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Within your role you will be responsible for:

• project related landscape assessment, incl. consumer & stylist insights, competitive benchmarks; INCI checks.
• qualification of early product prototypes and services and ensuring accurate, thorough technical documentation.
• visualization of product ideas and benefit demonstration to illustrate product newness, building the reason to believe in product efficacy.
• support the development of science stories.
• partnering across R&D to deepen technical understanding and deliver solutions that advance our innovation pipeline.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Minimum Bachelor Degree from university in chemistry, chem-eng, cosmetic sciences, natural sciences, biology/biotech, etc. or related fields.
• Ideally experience within FMCG or beauty industry in designing and qualifying new technologies.
• Curiosity and empathy to transfer consumer and stylist insights into new product ideas.
• Proven record of planning and executing technical work with rigor and discipline.

• Desire to penetrate science deeply and create science stories for new innovations and/or ingredients.

• Team player and "can do" attitude, creative thinking

• AI savvy

• A bias towards Beauty and in touch with trends in the beauty industry
• Communication and presentation skills for verbal and written communication (in English) of ideas, technical rationales, risks, issues and recommendation.
• Capable and willing to work in a fast-paced environment.

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

We offer equal employment opportunity to qualified individuals without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Wella complies with federal and state disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. We strongly believe that cultivating a diverse workplace gives a company strength.