Sr. Innovation Scientist

Every professional wants to work for an industry leader. Now is your chance as Hearth & Home Technologies is hiring a Sr. Innovation Scientist in Lakeville, MN.

A career at Hearth & Home Technologies puts you in the position of working with the most popular brands in the industry, and having an impact on a product that people love. The hearth is the center of the home and family life.

Reporting to the Innovation Laboratory Director, the Senior Innovation Scientist is responsible for driving consumer inspired innovation at HHT. This will include leading and/or being an active participant in consumer inspired innovation projects in areas of strategic importance, from scoping, uncovering latent unmet consumer needs, brainstorming, prototyping, filing patents, validation of concepts with consumers, building business cases and moving projects through the new product development process.

What you will do:

• Lead or actively participate in consumer inspired innovation projects, from inception to launch.
• Participate in identification of unmet consumer needs.
• Develop potential solutions to consumer needs.
• File patents to protect new solutions.
• Validate new products solutions with consumers.
• Participate in building business case for new products.
• Develop new products through new product process, from early stage concepting & prototyping through to launch.
• Influence and actively participate in new product strategy and roadmap discussions.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Science.
• 12 or more years of professional experience in R&D and/or new product development (or equivalent with advanced degree obtainment plus professional experience).
• Demonstrated track record of initiating, driving, developing and commercializing new products, both evolutionary and revolutionary.
• Development experience with multiple stages of the product development process (front end, development, scale up, launch).
• Experience with assessing and creating intellectual property.
• Experience with leading development efforts for new products or technologies.
• Vision: Ability to paint a picture to help influence product strategy and product roadmaps.
• Leadership: Ability to provide senior technical leadership. Demonstrated ability to influence change within an organization.
• Critical thinking: Identification of risks and assumptions and development of strategies for de-risking and validating.
• Communication: Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, at all levels of the organization.
• Collaboration & Facilitation: Ability to collaborate across an organization and facilitate cross-functional discussions to gain alignment on path forward.
• Consumer focused: Adept at listening to and uncovering unmet consumer needs.
• Creative and hands-on: Ability to translate consumer needs into novel solutions and develop to working prototype/proof of concept.
• Business minded: comfort in working cross-functionally to help in building a business case.
• Intellectual Property: Ability to generate Intellectual Property (IP) as well as participate in and influence IP strategy discussions.
• Willing to travel as needed (25%)

About Working for Hearth & Home Technologies

Take ownership of your career with a job that ignites your passions and rewards your hard work. At Hearth & Home Technologies, you will have the opportunity to Burn Brighter working with a supportive team developing industry-leading hearth products.

Hearth & Home Technologies is an operating division of HNI Corporation (NYSE: HNI). We design, manufacture and distribute a wide variety of gas, electric, wood and biomass burning fireplaces, inserts, stoves and accessories. Lakeville, Minnesota is our home, but we have locations throughout the United States.

Our company endeavors to make accessible to any and all users. If you would like to contact us regarding the accessibility of our website or need assistance completing the application process, please contact us at or via email at [emailprotected]. The Company is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, gender, ethnicity, religion, national origin, ancestry, nationality, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, genetic information, or on any other basis prohibited by law (except where an attribute is a bona fide occupational qualification).