Overview In this Principal Scientist role, you will lead complex salty snack product development and process optimization, spanning wet- and air-popped popcorn, chips, and expanded snacks. You'll shape innovation pipelines, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and guide commercialization from concept to launch. You'll mentor scientists and drive technical excellence to deliver high-quality, scalable products. This position blends science, regulation, and business goals to strengthen Hershey's Salty Snacks portfolio and market leadership.
Compensation / Benefits- Health & wellbeing benefits (medical, dental, vision)
- Competitive pay and 401(k) with company match
- Paid time off and holidays
- Flexible work arrangements where applicable
- Career development programs and internal mobility
Responsibilities- Provide technical leadership for complex salty snack development meeting consumer, regulatory, quality, cost, and manufacturability requirements
- Serve as SME for core salty snack technologies (popcorn, baking science, chips, expanded snacks) and guide strategic technical decisions
- Lead formulation development, process optimization, and commercialization from concept to launch
- Oversee prototyping, ingredient system development, pilot plant trials, scale-up, and factory implementation
- Develop and maintain technical specifications, standards, and documentation for ingredients, products, and processes for regulatory compliance and quality
- Drive technical strategy and pipeline development with cross-functional partners to assess opportunities and manage risk
- Apply data-driven methodologies to improve product performance and shelf life while adopting emerging technologies
- Support capital projects and manufacturing capability development through process-product understanding
- Influence organizational capability by advocating for new technologies and best practices
- Mentor and develop scientists, engineers, and technicians, and represent Hershey in internal and external engagements
Key requirements- 7-10+ years in food R&D, preferably salty snacks, cereals, extrusion, frying, or baking
- Deep technical expertise in popcorn, chips, baked snacks, and expanded systems
- Strong understanding of ingredient functionality, frying, extrusion, thermal processing, and baking systems
- Proven commercialization and pilot-to-plant scale-up experience
- Strong business acumen and cross-functional leadership
- Expert-level knowledge in at least three areas: popcorn technology, baking science, chip manufacturing, extrusion/expansion, fats/oils chemistry, or thermal processing
- Proven track record leading complex product development projects
- Strong problem-solving, communication, leadership, and influencing skills
- Preferred: experience with commercialization across multiple plants, rheology/thermal analysis/microstructure tools
- Education: MS/PhD in Food Science, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Grain Science, or related; or Bachelor with 12-15 years experience.
- cross-functional collaboration
- leadership and mentorship
- strong communication
- popcorn technology
- baking science
- chip manufacturing
