Product Research & Development Manager
No salary listed
Mid
Bachelor's
Tokyo, Japan
In Person
ProductProduct Management
About the job
Requirements
- A bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
- At least 3 years of experience in product management, sourcing, or category management.
- Demonstrated experience with data analysis and business metrics.
- Native-level Japanese and business-level English language capability.
- Experience managing supplier, vendor, or manufacturer relationships and negotiations.
Responsibilities
- Lead product-related customer research and perform data analysis in assigned areas.
- Identify market trends and consumer insights to inform strategy, product development briefs, and business cases in assigned areas.
- Manage the full product lifecycle from strategic ideation through commercialization, launch, and in-market optimization in assigned areas.
- Build and maintain long-term and annual product roadmaps in assigned areas.
- Monitor and respond to customer feedback and sales metrics.
- Conduct weekly, monthly, and quarterly business reviews using data-driven insights and root cause analysis.
- Develop and maintain product dashboards with key performance indicators to track progress against goals.
- Optimize product, price, placement, and promotion with partner teams to bring products to market effectively.
- Make data-informed decisions using qualitative and quantitative customer insights in assigned areas.
- Collaborate with North American, European Union, and Japanese category merchant stakeholders to achieve financial plans and category objectives.
- Own end-to-end product lifecycle, working backwards from customer needs to develop compelling product roadmaps in assigned areas.
- Create and maintain product requirement documents and PRFAQs articulating product vision and strategy in assigned areas.
- Serve as a subject matter expert in private labeling, understanding supplier landscapes and optimizing the portfolio.
- Drive new product creation and renovation of existing products to optimize the portfolio against business objectives.
- Partner with Legal and Quality Assurance to bring products to market efficiently while managing risk.
- Lead product development in assigned areas, including category insights, formulation development with suppliers, cooking, preparation, sample presentations, and first production management.
- Benchmark products against competition in assigned areas, ensure formulations meet key objectives, and adhere to Whole Foods Market and EB ingredient and quality standards.
- Develop and nurture strategic supplier partnerships in assigned areas to drive innovation and operational excellence.
- Establish and own relationships with key strategic suppliers to deliver the product roadmap.
- Develop a methodology for determining optimal assemblers and co-manufacturers for the short and long term.
- Lead negotiation strategies to deliver against safety, quality, cost, and delivery objectives and achieve sustainable supplier relationships.
- Implement supplier scorecarding and performance management systems to ensure quality, sustainability, and business outcomes.
- Champion organics, fair trade, animal welfare, sustainability, and quality standards to advance the organization’s mission.
- Partner with Global Purchasing teams, Distribution, and Regions to ensure alignment with category strategy.
- Drive packaging innovation that enhances customer experience while supporting sustainability goals.
- Influence product placement decisions through data-driven insights and customer decision-tree methodology.
- Collaborate with the Pricing team to ensure products meet target price positions while maintaining margin requirements.
- Balance the customer value proposition with profit targets to deliver on Conscious Capitalism principles.
- Collaborate with and influence cross-functional teams and leaders.
- Communicate, represent, and uphold the organization’s core values and leadership principles.
- Demonstrate bias for action, ownership mentality, and customer obsession in all activities.
- Partner closely with cross-functional teams to deliver customer expectations, operating profit, and channel requirements while meeting tight deadlines.
Desired Qualifications
- Experience in the food industry or retail grocery.
- Knowledge of sustainability practices, organic standards, and ethical sourcing.
- Experience with product research and development lifecycle management.
- Proficiency with data analysis tools and visualization software.
About the company
Amazon runs the largest online store in the United States and rents cloud computing to businesses and governments through Amazon Web Services. AWS pioneered renting computing power over the internet, and Amazon built its own delivery network to get orders to customers quickly. Shoppers buy from Amazon and from independent sellers on its store, and Prime members pay a subscription for fast free shipping, streaming video and music, and other perks. AWS rents out computing power, storage, databases, and AI tools so companies can run software without owning servers, and Amazon also makes Kindle e-readers and Echo speakers with the Alexa assistant. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, and it is based in Seattle, Washington.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Seattle, Washington
Founded
1994
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- AI drives growth: AWS's AI and custom-chip sales each more than doubled, passing $25 billion a year by June 2026.
- Stock grants gained value: shares hit a record in August 2026, making Amazon the fifth company to reach $3 trillion.
- Ads are a third engine beside stores and AWS: they grew 26% to $19.8 billion in the June 2026 quarter.
What critics are saying
- AWS's lead is shrinking: in the June 2026 quarter, Google Cloud grew 82% and Microsoft's Azure 43%, versus AWS's 37%.
- Job security has slipped: Amazon cut 30,000 corporate jobs in October 2025 and January 2026 to reduce management layers.
- Expect five office days a week: Amazon ended its three-day hybrid policy for corporate staff in January 2025.
What makes Amazon unique
- Most of Amazon's profit comes from cloud: AWS made 21% of sales but 60% of operating profit in mid-2026.
- Amazon is America's biggest parcel carrier by volume: it handled 6.9 billion packages in 2025, more than the Postal Service.
- Writing matters more than slides: Amazon meetings open with silent reading of a six-page memo instead of PowerPoint.
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Benefits
- Flexible Work Hours
- Company Equity