Fragrance Development Manager/Surface Care-Princeton, NJ

Fragrance Development Manager

Princeton, NJ, US

Hybrid

As a Fragrance Development Manager within the Growth Office, you will lead innovation in the global Surface Care category while contributing to key Fabric Care initiatives. This role requires a strategic and creative mindset, leveraging consumer insights, market trends, and breakthrough fragrance innovations to drive growth. With a growth-oriented approach, strong leadership, and development expertise, you will shape the future of these categories and deliver cutting-edge olfactive solutions.

At dsm-firmenich, being a force for good is not optional. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is a shared responsibility woven into our daily work to not only benefit our People, Customers & Communities but also drive business value. Equal access to opportunities is a given, belonging is a shared feeling, authenticity is celebrated.

Your key responsibilities

• Establish and maintain a deep understanding of the segment/category, leveraging consumer insights, market intelligence, and olfactive analytics (olfactive decoding, benchmarking, U&A, competitive analysis, etc.).
• Drive the creation and deployment of global olfactive tools to strengthen category fundamentals.

Equip the extended fragrance development network with actionable expertise, ensuring seamless execution and knowledge transfer.

• Enable the technical team by integrating fragrance design model learnings into development processes.

Set best-in-class protocols to standardize fragrance development and drive consistency across teams.

Lead the innovation roadmap for the category in scope, defining the olfactive strategy and orchestrating cross functional networks to deliver impactful solutions.

• Champion the innovation portfolio, ensuring continuous evolution based on market needs and business priorities.

Train and guide the fragrance development community on cutting-edge category technologies and fragrance design methodologies.

• Develop fragrance-led innovations with perfumers, R&D, and consumer insights teams—establishing clear olfactive parameters, testing, and validating prototypes.

Support sales in customer-driven innovation initiatives, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives.

• When appropriate, develop globally relevant, client-agnostic innovation collections to enhance category positioning.

Contribute to high-priority sales projects in collaboration with lead teams, ensuring a seamless link between global expertise and market-specific needs

• Collaborates with perfumers, technical, innovation hub, frag. intelligence, CI and marketing teams to develop fragrance prototypes that support innovation and upstream proactive creation initiatives

We bring

• Empowerment to make meaningful contributions while upholding ethical standards
• Recognition and celebration of your efforts and accomplishments.
• Opportunities for growth and advancement for those who embrace innovation and take initiative.
• Customer-first approach, working with world-renowned brands to turn ideas into impactful solutions.
• Opportunity to build a career making a significant impact on billions of lives, with the freedom to shape your own path.
• Dedication to creating better futures for customers, communities, people, and the planet

Your bring

• 10/12 years of experience in F&F with proven track records in Fragrance development, educated sense of smell and skills in project management.
• Proficient in data interpretation, clear communication skills and team spirit to collaborate with cross functional functions, creative-proactive mindset, understanding of regulatory requirements.
• Strategic thinking & leadership
• Substantial fragrance development expertise, with an educated sense of smell and ability to conceptualize innovative fragrance concepts that align with market trends and consumer preferences.
• Proficient in CI methodologies, skilled in data interpretation for informed decisions.
• Strong project management skills.
• Clear communication skills to drive projects and ensure cross functional team aligned plan in deployment of innovation.

dsm-firmenich is fully dedicated to inclusion because when people feel engaged and empowered, their creativity and innovation drives unprecedented progress. We aim to build a workplace where opportunity really is equal, so everyone can thrive. We do not discriminate: there’s a place for everyone at dsm-firmenich.

As a committed equal opportunity employer, we ensure our recruitment practices are inclusive and fair. We encourage the recruitment of a diverse workforce, representative of the communities in which we work, by using inclusive language, diverse interview panels, diversified sourcing strategies. Selection is based on qualifications, competency, experience, performance history and fit with the team to advance fair and equitable opportunity.

Employment decisions are based upon job-related reasons regardless of an applicant's race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, backgrounds, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by law.

We are committed to providing reasonable support for disabled applicants in our recruiting process. Should you need assistance, and are comfortable to share this, please let us know.

As innovators in nutrition, health, and beauty, dsm-firmenich reinvents, manufactures, and combines vital nutrients, flavors, and fragrances for the world’s growing population to thrive. With our comprehensive range of solutions, with natural and renewable ingredients and renowned science and technology capabilities, we work to create what is essential for life, desirable for consumers, and more sustainable for the planet. dsm-firmenich is a Swiss-Dutch company, listed on the Euronext Amsterdam, with operations in almost 60 countries and revenues of more than €12 billion. With a diverse, worldwide team of nearly 30,000 employees, we bring progress to life™ every day, everywhere, for billions of people.

Please note this is a direct search led by dsm-firmenich. We only accept applications from candidates, not from agencies nor subject to agency’s fees, percentages or similar.