Head of R&D Nutraceutical/Food Product Development

Head of R&D Nutraceutical/Food Product Development

Location: Hyderabad (in-office)

Function: R&D & Product Development

Reports to: Founders

Earthful is a plant-based nutrition brand for women's health, backed by Fireside Ventures and V3 Ventures. Our product pipeline is the engine behind the brand this role owns it end to end, from the phytochemistry that makes a formulation work to the team that ships it, launch after launch.

Role Overview

This role owns Earthful's product innovation pipeline leading the R&D team through active plant/food ingredient and formulation, basic analytical knowledge, stability testing, and production-ready handoff for 3+ new nutraceutical/wellness products a month. You'll lead and grow a team of formulation scientists, build the project management discipline that keeps multiple launches moving in parallel, and give leadership regular, honest visibility into the pipeline. This is a hands-on technical leadership role you'll be expected to go deep on the science as well as run the team and the process. This role should have strong knowledge on botanicals/vitamins/minerals/amino acids/proteins and their formulating dosage forms along with strong food regulatory knowledge.

What You'll Own

New Product Development & Launch Velocity

Stay current on botanicals/vitamins/minerals/amino acids/proteins and category trends to keep the innovation pipeline forward-looking, not only reactive to a fixed roadmap

Own end-to-end delivery of 3+ product launches per month spanning net-new formulations, variants, raw material changes, and form-factor changes

Lead ingredient and botanical formulation research for new and reformulated products

Develop and refine trial formulations through to production-ready specs

Run stability testing and ensure every formulation is genuinely production-ready before handoff

Ensure every launch meets quality, cost, and regulatory requirements

Team Leadership

Lead, mentor, and allocate work across the R&D team

Keep multiple concurrent formulation projects moving in parallel without bottlenecking on any one person

Build the team's technical depth in phytochemistry and formulation science through hands-on mentorship

Hire and develop R&D talent as the team and pipeline scale

R&D Project & Pipeline Management

Build and maintain a rigorous project management system timelines, milestones, vendor/ingredient dependencies, risk tracking across all simultaneous product workstreams

Report pipeline status and roadmap to leadership on a regular cadence

Flag risks (ingredient sourcing delays, formulation setbacks, regulatory blockers) before they threaten launch timelines

Cross-Functional

Coordinate directly with the Regulatory & Compliance team on new product FSSAI classification and claims substantiation timed to land ahead of each launch, not after

Coordinate with Procurement on new ingredient sourcing, cost feasibility, and vendor lead times during formulation, not after a recipe is locked

Maintain formulation documentation and knowledge retention so know-how doesn't live only in one person's head

Track R&D spend against approved projects and flag overruns early

Ensure proprietary formulations and novel phytochemical combinations are properly documented to protect Earthful's IP, not just for operational continuity

Coordinate with external/third-party labs for specialized testing (potency, heavy metals, extended stability) where in-house capability doesn't cover it

What We're Looking For

Education

PhD in Pharmacy, Pharmacognosy, Food Science, or a related life-sciences field strongly preferred

Candidates with an M.Tech/M.Pharm and substantial, multi-year hands-on R&D industry experience will also be considered in lieu of a PhD

Experience

6+ years of post-PhD (or equivalent, for the M.Tech track) R&D/formulation experience in nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, or a related consumer health industry

At least 2+ years directly managing or leading a team this is not a first-time people-management role

Proven track record of taking products from ingredient/phytochemical research through to production-ready launch, in an industry setting, not purely academic research

Experience building or running a project management system across multiple concurrent workstreams

Comfortable coordinating with regulatory, supply chain, and manufacturing functions to get products to market on time .